(You guys serious have no idea how much I have laughed at this crappy photochop over the last week.  Just expect morbidly obese Matt to start making more appearances on this blog.)

I could go on to tie in some big emotional sob story about how miserable it is eating alone and living alone and onmygosh when am I ever going to find anyone who loves me and will help me do the dishes I’m going to die from loneliness.  And on a normal day, that’s probably what I would do on a blog post.  But I’m just not in the mood.  Nevertheless, I’ve got a problem. I literally just fried a bag of sweet potato fries and put them on a plate with ketchup for dinner. 

Let me reiterate: I JUST ATE NOTHING BUT AN ENTIRE PLATE OF SWEET POTATO FRIES FOR DINNER. And yes, while sweet potatoes are technically a vegetable, and according to the people who set the rules for school lunches, so is ketchup, it just feels wrong. And, at the same time, so very right.

I still have some chicken enchiladas leftovers in the fridge.  I’ve already had them for four meals, and even though I still have half of a pan left, if I have to eat one bite more, I am fairly certain I will projectile vomit across the living room floor.  And much like my dog, I’m fairly certain that, rather than puking on the laminate floor, I’ll probably end up puking on the carpet too.

And it’s even worse that we’re in the middle of winter.  I try to eat seasonally, and as far as I’m concerned, the only vegetable in season in the winter is Rocky Road Ice Cream.  (What? Marshmallows used to be made from a plant called the Marsh Mallow.  It counts as a vegetable.  Shut up.)  I event tried going to Pinterest for ideas, but apparently, its users only ever pin baked goods, the Pioneer Woman’s Creamy Chicken Piccata recipe, and cute pancake ideas for Saturday breakfast.  (Oh, and don’t even get me started on Saturday breakfast.  The chances of me getting up and cooking a giant breakfast for myself on Saturday morning are about the same as winning the jackpot in the state lottery.  Sure, I’ll get up early, spend two hours working on a giant breakfast, and then have to spend most of the rest of the day cleaning up the mess from the breakfast that, by the time I finished making, it was nearly lunch. Great way to start off my weekend.)

So I need help. I know that there are a lot of you domestic stay-at-home mom types who read this blog. Even those of you who work often cook for families, so you have to at least pretend to make healthy food to avoid the guilt of having Shamu-sized children.  I need dinner ideas.  These dinners should be:

• Heavy on the veggies—particularly ones that I can get this time of year (e.g., no tomatoes unless in a can)
• Re-heatable
• Fairly easy/quick
• A little different than usual. I don’t think I could force one more spinach salad down my gullet.

I’m in serious trouble.  I looked over my planned menu for the next two weeks and realized that two of the three big dishes I’m going to make (I usually cook a big dinner one night and then eat it for the next four) are super-complicated and messy, and I just can’t do it.  I mean, seriously?  Who thinks, “Hm. I really like Indian Food.  I’ve never made them before, but I like it.  I think tonight, after 10 hours of work, I’m going to go through the four-hour process of making Samosas, including making the dough from scratch.  And then I’ll eat them for both lunch and dinner for the next seven days.  Because I’m sure I won’t get tired of eating spicy Indian food for 10 of my next 15 meals.”  I must have been out of my mind.  (Thanks again, Pinterest.)

Meal ideas.  Please!!!

That effing ingrown toenail will never come back again, because there won’t be a toe for it to come back on.  I’ve been looking for a use for my Sawzall ever since I bought it.  The metal-cutting blade should work, right?  While I’m waiting to determine if I will need to self-amputate my toe, I’m dealing with the results of yet another $300 visit to the podiatrist which is insurance doesn’t cover because my insurance sucks the giant ogre wankie of doom.  I’ve got an open wound on my toe where a giant boil/callus used to be, I’m spending my retirement fund on epsom salts, and lurching around the complex like Gimpy McGimperson while I am “walking” the dog—all the while wishing that I had a Hoveround.

(No, but seriously.  How much do you wish that you could just ride a mobility scooter around all day?  Not because you had to, but because you could?  That would be awesome.)

You may have noticed that I’m not writing as much lately in my blog as I have in the past.  There is, in fact, a reason for this that has absolutely nothing to do with an Obese Matt™ riding a Hoveround down the sidewalk in blue fuzzy slippers.  I haven’t written in my blog because I’ve been busy writing a book.  I started this book project back in September or October, I don’t remember exactly.  Last Sunday, I finished the first draft of the book.  Right now, it’s sitting at about 440 pages and 105,000 words.  I’m in the middle of editing the book right now, but when I edit things, I tend to make them longer. (“Hmmm.  I wasn’t very clear here.  Let me remove that one sentence and replace it with 12 paragraphs that say the same thing, but in more detail.”)

Once my edit is done, I think I’m going to ship the 593 pages of manuscript to a professional editor to make it presentable.  Then I am going to self-publish (at least initially) while I attempt to shop it to publishing houses.  I will, of course, also record the audiobook version of the title, and sell it through Open Book Audio.  I’ve had several people ask me if they could read it, and the answer is: not yet.  Right now, the structure is a complete and total train wreck.  I’ll get that fixed and do a quick once-over on proofreading, and then I’ll let select folks read it.

It was actually quite fun writing a book.  Memoirs, in general, aren’t as exciting as fiction.  But I can actually say that I have written a book.  Yay for crossing off one of my Bucket List items.  And maybe, after a lot of work, this book will actually be good enough to not be a complete and total embarrassment to all of the people in my life who tried (and failed) to teach me to be at least remotely literate and not write really long run on sentences that don’t really have much important to say.

In other news (I’m piling a bunch of unrelated stuff into a single blog post because I’ve not written anything in such a long time), I have purchased a new domain name.  Some douche nozzle has been sitting on the mattarmstrong.com domain name for years and years.  They want $1700 to sell it.  I will buy that domain name someday when money is no longer an issue for me, but not yet.  In the meantime, I purchased mattarmstrong.net and mattarmstrong.me.  Over the next several months, I’m going to be moving my entire site (including this blog) to the new addresses.  This mattarmstrongmusic.com domain will still work for a good long while, but since I’m doing so much more than music these days (and so little of that) I wanted to get a more generic domain.  Besides, when my book becomes a New York Times Bestseller, I want people to be able to find my blog more easily to partake in even more of my clever witticisms.

And except for these things, I haven’t been doing much…except orchestrating and recording a medley of Frank Wildhorn songs for a friend’s high school theater competition, transcribing the chords from a new song I discovered that I want to record, prepping a couple of new books for the Open Book Audio catalog, working a full-time job, cooking up a storm (I made Preztel Rolls the other day, and they changed my life), and crocheting two new afghans. Oh, and I’m just finishing up the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix, and I’m trying to get in about 9-12 miles on the Elliptical each week.  (I refuse to buy bigger pants.  I will give up on life and wear sweatpants to work everyday before I move up to a 36” waist.)  Oh yeah, and I got a bug to start re-learning the guitar again that will probably only last a week or two.  And I’m playing Skyrim.

Geez.  I seriously need to learn how to relax.

2011 was a great year.

Okay?  You’re back with us now?  You didn’t hit your head too hard on the concrete when you passed out did you?  I know, I know.  It’s a surprise, but it’s true.  For me, 2011 was a great year.  2011 was the year that my audiobook company finally started making money.  It was the year that I finally reached the kind of work/life balance that I’ve been aiming for since I entered the workforce.  It was the year that I met and talked with my neighbors, progressed at work, learned new skills, and resurrected long-neglected ones.  I made lots of music, gardened, crocheted, sewed, played video games, took photos, started writing my book, cooked a lot, began working out again, and finally started learning how to live within my means.  I got to welcome my beautiful new nephew into the world.  I broke up with Facebook. I became an (official) manager of other people for the first time in my career.  I spent time with my family, played with my dog, enjoyed the short (but beautiful) summer, lost 15 pounds, and gained it all back. 

I did a lot and experienced a lot this year, but what makes 2011 such a special year for me had less to do with what I did or didn’t do, and much more to do with the tectonic shift in my attitude about my own life.  For the first time in my life, I became comfortable with myself as a person.  I was able to finally see past my shortcomings and appreciate my strengths.  I stopped making and tracking my resolutions or goals on a monthly basis.  I (largely) stopped bemoaning the fact that my life hadn’t turned out the way I expected it to.  Rather than feeling lonely or left out, I began to find a great deal of comfort in my own solitude.  My life became far more peaceful than it has ever been before.

A large part of that shift is related to a choice I made a few months ago to stop caring about what other people thought of me or what I do.  I was able to speak my mind more freely, and not worry about how people saw me because of it.  I did the things that made me happy, regardless of how doing so made me look in the eyes of others.  I stopped “apologizing” for being the way that I am, and instead learned to appreciate myself.  I learned that I’m awesome, and I don’t freakin’ care if you don’t think so.  I discovered that I have never met anyone like me in my life, and that’s pretty cool.  I finally learned to appreciate my unique skillset and personality. 

If I may submit an example of this change:  2011 was one of the most musically prolific years for me since I retired from performing.  My skills are rusty, my voice certainly not in top shape.  Nevertheless, I stopped caring if people liked my music, and I posted it online anyway.  I endured a bit of (I believe) friendly ridicule from some co-workers over the content or quality of my music.  In the past, that would have torn me up, and I would have bemoaned the fact that I wasn’t any good.  This time, I actually managed to let it roll off my back, and I kept doing my thing anyway.  I was able to realize that not everyone will appreciate what I do, and I don’t care.

As this year quickly coasts to its close, I find myself a happier person.  Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I’m still sarcastic, a little bitter, and prone to fits of ranting.  That will probably never change.  But I’m learning to let it go much more quickly—to move on.  Perhaps it’s maturity.  Perhaps it is my comfortable isolation.  Perhaps it’s a fluke. And most importantly, perhaps it doesn’t matter.  I feel as though I made some important steps this year toward getting to know who I really am, and not who I thought I was or was told that I should be.  Not bad for a year’s work.

To all my friends, family, co-workers, and other, anonymous readers of my blog, I wish you a very Happy New Year.  May 2012 be as fulfilling for you as 2011 was for me.

I have too.  I don’t know if it’s the weather, or the fact that I just signed a new lease, or a completely overwhelming desire to never see a white wall again for the rest of my life, or perhaps because I’m feeling sympathetic nesting vibes from my sister, but I have been pretty desperate to fix up my apartment and have a much nicer-looking abode.

It started a couple of weeks ago when I signed my lease.  My lease was set to expire at the end of November, and I had just discovered that my rent was going to go up by $235 a month, which is a bit out of my price range.  Fortunately, I waited about a week, and the rent fell by $110, which is still more than I’d like to pay, but it is within my payable budget.  (It just means that I have to save $110 less every month.  Boo.)  Once I signed the lease, I realized that this would be the start of my third year in the same apartment…something I have never done ever in my life since I moved out of my parent’s house to go to college.  I’ve been in Seattle for a little over four and a half years (!), but I’ve lived in three different apartments during that time.

So, now that I knew I was going to be sticking around for a while, I figured it was time to invest a bit in my living space, and make it feel a bit more like a home, and less like a sterile, white-walled monstrosity with really awful cabinets.  So, I went to Home Depot, got a bunch of paint chips and a few of those color book fans, and set about picking a color palette.  I decided on a dark chocolate brown, a very pale robin’s egg blue, a celery green, and a pale yellow color to help brighten up the space.  I went and bought a sample can of each color, put them on the walls, and realized that it looked as though I was trying to decorate a baby boy’s nursery.  Way too pastel, way too cutsey, and not at all my style. 

So, next I decided I’d start with fabric rather than paint.  I went to Joann Fabrics and found this really great fabric for $20 a yard and 40% off.  I bought nine yards, and bought the blackout lining as well, and decided to sew my own curtains.  The only problem?  I don’t own a sewing machine.  I borrowed one from some friends only to find out that it was broken.  Nobody else I knew in the area owned a sewing machine, so I finally broke down and bought one.

This is the model I eventually ended up going with.  Now, I learned to sew when I was about seven or eight years old on my mom’s 50’s-era Singer sewing machine (which, coincidentally, still works and she still has.) It weighs a blue ton, has very few special features, and is all manual.  My new sewing machine has 60 some-odd new stitches, a drop-in bobbin, and will thread the needle for me.  This may not be very special for people who sew a lot, but it was a revelation for me.

So, having not sewn in something like 15 years, I proceeded to make my curtains.  Now granted, curtains are pretty darn easy to sew.  It’s just a flat panel of fabric with a liner.  It’s not like I went all Schmuel the Tailor on them.  (Bonus points to anyone who knows that reference without having to look it up.)  And they turned out well.

Then, once I had the curtains up, I was finally able to choose more accurate colors.  I started with the safest color (the brown) and the easiest room (the dining room).  I spent all of Friday evening last weekend taping and painting the dining room a nice café au lait color.  Again, I believe it turned out quite nicely.  Especially when I dressed it all up and made it look like someone with class lived in my apartment, instead of someone who cooks pizza rolls on tin foil and then eats it on the floor of the living room because he doesn’t want to get the dishes dirty.

I still need some artwork for the wall to the right of the dining room area, and if I were a bit more adventurous, and had a ton of extra money to spend, I would get a small chandelier to hang in the dining room instead of the single (crappy) pot light that is there, but I don’t want to go to that much effort.  So, instead, I brought my brushed nickel teardrop lamps out of the bedroom where they were languishing (since I never spend time in my bedroom) and put them out in the dining room. 

Then, I basically spent the rest of the next week (this last week) wishing that I had something else to sew.  I couldn’t afford another couple of hundred dollars for fabric to make curtains for the dining room or my bedroom.  So I decided I would try my hand at sewing clothing.  Now, the last time I tried making clothes was when I was working on the cruise ship back in 2000.  I was buying all of my fabric in shops in Denmark or Sweden, and buying all of my patterns there too.  And most of the patterns didn’t have any instructions in English.  And I couldn’t really ask for advice from the people there.  Suffice it to say, the results were less than ideal.

My first apparel project was the green hooded sweatshirt you see me donning in the picture to the left.  Yes, in case you are wondering, I did actually take a picture of myself in the bathroom mirror.  I know, I know.  It’s tacky.  Just deal with it.  I didn’t want to set up my real camera gear.  The fact is that a) I made a piece of clothing from scratch and b) it actually looks fairly well-made and I would be able to wear it out into public.  There’s supposed to be a drawstring around the bottom of the sweatshirt, although I haven’t been able to find one in the right color.  I suppose it’s all for the best though, because putting a drawstring on the bottom of a sweatshirt doesn’t make any sense to me.  It would just make me look like a green pumpkin with legs.

After a harrowing week at work, I also decided that I was going to take a much-needed day off from work to just relax.  I lounged around the house for most of the day, then when my cleaning lady came, I went to get a burger for lunch, get my oil changed, and get a sample can of the new green color that I’m going to be painting my living room.  This evening, after a dinner of homemade waffles with caramel sauce and sea salt (drool), I pulled out my paintbrush and started putting the color on the wall.  I actually like it a lot. 

It looks a little more blue in this photo than it does on the wall, but again, this is just a quick snapshot with my phone.  I am pretty sure this will be my color.  It’s light, and just a shade away from being a neutral green, so it’s not too wild.  And it brightens up my dark apartment (especially on cloudy/rainy days) a lot.  I’ll let it try overnight, and then I’ll go get the full gallon of it tomorrow, and paint tomorrow night.  This room will be quite a bit trickier for a few reasons.  First, there’s a butt-ton of electrical equipment in it, so that will have to be dismantled and moved.  Meaning that I won’t be able to easily listen to music while I’m working, which may drive me to violence.  (I hate doing work like this without music, podcasts, audiobooks, or the TV on in the background.)  Second, I have surround sound speakers on the back wall and ceiling and a cable conduit that runs along the entire ceiling.  That conduit has to come down, and it’s pretty ugly, so I don’t want to put it back up if I don’t have to.  I may need to find another options for my surround sound speakers.  (I feel like I need a #FirstWorldProblems hashtag here.) Finally, there will be a LOT of taping in this room.  I hate taping a cutting in.  My least favorite part of painting.

Next, I have picked out the color for the kitchen, but I haven’t convinced myself that I really want to paint the kitchen anyway.  There isn’t a lot of paintable space, but I’m not really in the mood to move or paint around all those appliances.  After that, I have to take a break until after the first of the year.  I need to get all this done soon because with Halloween upon us, it’s almost time for me to start decorating for Christmas.  Also, my savings account needs a breather to recover.  I haven’t spent a TON of money on my new nesting habit (maybe $500 total), but I’m on a very tight budget these days, and I hate to dip into my savings account for something that’s not a necessity. I spend most of my time in these rooms anyway.

I’m not sure why the nesting bug hit me so hard and so quickly, but I really hope that nobody else I know is planning on getting pregnant anytime soon.

Jesse was in several shows with me in high school and so we spent a fair bit of time together, and I was always envious of his social abilities.  I had always wanted to be more social, be more popular, but I just couldn’t seem to figure out how to do it.  I studied Jesse’s social skills trying to glean his secrets—to no major effect, I’m afraid.  In fact, at one point, I got so fed up with how popular he was that in a late-night fit of emo angst, I wrote this truly awful poem called The Social Butterfly which, thankfully, has been lost to the annals of time.  Hopefully never to be recovered.   (I plan on going through some of my old things when I’m home for Christmas this year, so it should be interesting to see what I unearth).

Here’s the thing about me: I am just not a terribly social person.  Or, at least, I’m not a terribly social person in the way that many people consider being social.  I don’t like parties, large groups of people, clubs, gatherings, activities.  I like to spend my time either alone, or with a small group of close friends.  I’ve always been the kind of person who has a few extremely close friends rather than scads of acquaintances masquerading as friends.  I don’t make friends easily, and my reserved nature (okay, you can stop laughing now—I am reserved when I’m around people I don’t know) often causes me to give off the impression that I’m unhappy, unlikable, or judgmental…which, to be fair, I am sometimes.

And as much as I joke about not having friends on my blog, I do have friends.  But I don’t have many friends, and I have very, very few that are what I would consider close friends.  And the funny thing about my friends is that of all of my friends, I don’t think the great majority of them would like each other very much, because they’re so different.  I’ve got friends who play Dungeons and Dragons and dress up for conventions and Mormon friends who ride 4-wheelers and surf.  I’ve got gay friends who like to go shopping, and dog owner friends who like to stand out in the parking lot in the rain and watch their dog play.  And I’ve got theater friends who are simultaneously the life of and death to any social gathering.  (Seriously, have you ever been around a group of theater people?  It’s like witnessing a living, breathing train wreck.)

Getting all of these people in a room together would be a fascinating experiment in reaching the critical mass of social awkwardness.  Which is one of the reasons why I don’t host parties very often.

Since high school, my outlook on being social has changed quite a bit.  I was envious and desperate to be part of every social group, to be liked, and to feel as though I belonged everywhere.  Then I went to college and was inducted into the sewing circle of nutcases actors that made up my musical theatre program, and I cared less about fitting into every group—because I felt like I had found my group.  Then I went through a very difficult time where I found myself alone all the time, and I felt like I had become unmoored from society. 

What I’ve come to realize, however, is that as I get older, my desire to be part of the social scene has nearly disappeared.  I was at work today, toward the end of the day, speaking with a couple of my co-workers.  One is a younger guy (23), the other, a woman older than me (43), and I am stuck dab in the middle (33).  The two of them are very social people.  They’re always going out to eat, and going to clubs, and hanging out with friends, and doing things.  They thrive on social interactions.  And they, as many people do, kept trying to convince me to go out with them.

And here’s the thing: I should.  I know I should.  But I don’t want to.  And the reason why I don’t want to has nothing to do with them.  I actually enjoy the company of both of them a lot.  But “going out” for me has become such an unappealing concept.  Going out means going to a loud bar or club where I only know the people I’m there with.  It means interacting with people I don’t know in a situation where I’m super-uncomfortable.  Going out is not fun for me—it’s an exercise in sheer terror.  I can put on a good face, but “going out” scares the hell out of me.  Which is why I don’t do it.

Over the last year, I have tried to force myself to be more social.  When people invite me to go do things, I always try to say “yes.”  And most of the time, I’m really glad I do.  I’ve had fun over at friends’ houses playing games, I’ve had fun going shopping or to the movies.  (Side note: if you ever want to “go out” with me and know I’ll have a good time, keep it to no more than four people, let’s go to a decent restaurant that’s quiet enough that we can talk, and then go to a movie at a nice theater.  I know it’s low-key, even boring, but it’s my kind of activity.)  But there are certain activities where I just know I’m going to be so miserable I can barely force myself to consider it, let alone actually do it.  Bars and Clubs, for instance.  Parades. Street Fairs.

And, of course, I don’t drink.  From what I understand, drinking is the universal social lubricant.  It’s too bad it impairs your judgment, costs a fortune, and tastes like licking an elephant’s ass crack.  (I assume.  I mean, I’ve never tasted alcohol. *rim shot*)

I used to feel like being alone was the worst thing in the world.  I suppose it comes from hearing in church that, “Man was not meant to be alone.”  Or it came from watching other young people experiencing sociality (did I use that word correctly?) and having a great time.  But when I do social activities, I don’t often have a great time.  I endure—and sometimes not even that.  Also, I have this paranoid sense that when I do force myself to participate in social situations, the people who invite me always question why they did, because I get really quiet and withdraw, and don’t delve in and take part.

I like my friends, and I like spending time with them.  I like doing some social things. But I really do like being on my own quite a bit too.  I like being able to do what I want, when I want it.  I like my projects and hobbies.  I like accomplishing things.  Now, what I really need to do is to find someone who wants to bake with me, or go on a photo walk, or work in the recording studio, or pay for me to refurnish my apartment.  Because then I could be somewhat social and not feel like I have been rode hard and put away wet* when it’s all over.

*This is not a euphemism.  Get your mind out of the gutter. Also, if it were a euphemism, being rode hard and put away wet would be a good thing. Which it’s not…you know what?  I’m just going to end this blog post now before I get myself into any more trouble.

And sometimes, it’s probably better that you can’t see past the surface because on the outside, they may look like this:

While on the inside, they are like this:

Of course, I exaggerate.  Even my Inner Fat Emo Kid would never pierce his lower lip or wear pigtails.  Tres gauche.

No, my Inner Fat Emo Kid and I are pretty darn close.  And we’ve been a lot closer lately. He has been blasting his death metal and writing sad poems in his journal alone, moping in his room a lot.  This is nothing new, of course.  My Inner Fat Emo Kid has been doing this steadily since 1994, when I was 16 years old, and I discovered that the world is always a more tragic place when you’re driving through the late-night streets and empty cemetery of Albion in a 1989 Mercury Grand Marquis LS.  (And my goodness…you should see home of the horrific emo poetry I wrote back then.  Huh-larious.)

Of course, back then, Inner Fat Emo Kid wasn’t so inner, and he wasn’t so fat.  But still just as emo.  Or rather, as emo as a clean-cut, red-headed, Mormon kid wearing a purple shirt, mustard yellow shorts, and black and brown loafers with white socks can be.  (Geez, that’s a mental image I wish I could erase.  Thank goodness there are no photos of that, or I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from posting them on the blog.  Inner Fat Emo Kid loves suffering.)

As I’ve gotten older, Inner Fat Emo Kid still manages to mope around every now and again.  But these days, he’s a little less Emo, and a little more Fat.  And, I hope at least, a lot more inner.  Except of course, when summer finally goes away, and I find myself staring at the prospect of another long, dark, and wet winter. Then he’s much more emo, much more fat, and a whole lot less inner.

That’s right!  All of that pictorial diatribe above was simply for me to complain about the weather!  Well that, and Halloween. 

My hatred of the miserable “holiday” called Halloween has been well-documented here and here.  My feelings on the subject have not changed, but have, in fact, strengthened. And I think I understand why.  Halloween falls into a bit of a happiness black hole.  During the summer, the sun is out, the days are long, it’s warm(ish) and dry(ish).  People are suffused with an excess of Vitamin D.  There are flowers, sunshine, and lollipops.  Well, maybe not the lollipops.  But there are popsicles.  And in England, they’re called Ice Lollies, so that’s close enough.  But it’s Summer!  And summer is awesome.

And then in November, it’s okay to start decorating for Christmas.  (And don’t you dare even start with me.)  And there’s Thanksgiving, when even Inner Fat Emo Kid can make himself so full of yummy food that there’s no room left for the Emo.  And after that, there’s Christmas.  And Christmas is the calendar equivalent to unicorns pooping rainbows and glitter.  It’s the most awesome thing ever.  And it makes me happy, and it has great music.  And it doesn’t matter that daylight only lasts 17 minutes because there are twinkling lights and pine-scented candles and the promise of presents and going home to visit family and letting my mom do the dishes for two weeks because she is apparently the only person in the Universe who actually knows how to load the dishwasher correctly so instead I get to go downstairs and play video games while she cleans up the kitchen. 

But Halloween just falls smack-dab into the right armpit of the year.  (The left armpit is the Late February-Late March kill-me-now-if-I-don’t-see-some-sunlight-or-flowers corridor.)  Summer’s over, but the real holidays haven’t started yet.  It’s too early to decorate for Christmas, and it’s too cold and wet to enjoy being outdoors. 

But seriously, this year, I have noticed a major shift in my mood when summer came to its very abrupt end.  I’ve been working very hard to keep myself busy, and to enjoy what little sunlight is still available to me, but I’m a bit worried about how I’m going to manage to cope through the upcoming winter.  Normally, the beautiful Seattle summers are enough to keep me going, but the last two years we’ve had very poor, cold, wet summers in comparison to what I witnessed the first two years I was here.  It didn’t start until mid to late July, and was over by the first week of September. 

So, I’m going to try a few things differently this year to try to stave off the Seasonal Affective Disorder of Doom™ that I can feel sneaking toward me on little hippopotamus feet.

#1 Must. Keep. Exercising.  I started swimming several miles in July.  I lost a bunch of weight really quickly, and had a lot more energy.  I was actually getting up and going swimming before work.  I have not been able to keep that up as the days are getting shorter.  I’m a rise-with-the-sun kind of person, and it’s been very, very difficult for me to get when it’s still completely dark outside.  And going after work is pretty much not going to happen.  Once my shoes come off after a long day of work, I’m not goin’ anywhere.  Except maybe to the apartment complex hot tub to soak for a few.  (Note to self: Go soak in the hot tub).

#2 Eat Better. October is very bad month for Matt nutritionally. And I can attribute it to one thing:

Look.  I know it’s horrible for me, but I don’t care.  They start putting those damn little monopoly pieces on the 10-piece Chicken McNugget box, and I will go all SuperSize Me.  (PS.  Did you ever notice that McDonalds doesn’t use the term Supersize anymore?)  So far, I have won 300 Coca-Cola Points, a $5 Wal-Mart Gift Certificate (Megan, I’ll give this to you because I don’t have a Wal-Mart in my area, and even if I did, I wouldn’t shop there.  But you’re strong enough to withstand the evil so I’ll bring it down when I come for Christmas), 20 4×6 Photo prints from Snapfish, and a $40 Tiger Wood 2012 Master Xbox Game.  Oh, and a Medium Fry, two breakfast sandwiches, and two quarter pounders.  Once this orgy of fried foods is over in two weeks (*cough*) I’m back to healthy eating. 

#3 Modern Pharmaceuticals.  (And don’t worry…I totally had to look up how to spell pharmaceuticals.)  This year, I don’t care what anyone says.  I am not going to go through this winter on my own.  I don’t believe I need the help of any prescription friends yet, but I’m all about the herbal supplements and all that crap.  Melatonin, Vitamin D, St. John’s Wort, Monkey Placenta…I don’t care.  I will take it all.  Load me up with as many pills as needed.  Hell, if I have to start chugging 4 Loko and 5-Hour Energy, I will do it.  If Nature can’t provide me with what I need to make it through this Winter, then Amazon.com will.

#4 Light Box. I’m pretty seriously considering getting one of those full-spectrum light boxes that you shine in your face for 30 minutes a day to help wake you up.  To be honest, it sounds like a scam…especially considering how stinking expensive the dang things are, but I’ll give it a go.  Especially if someone buys me one.  I’ve got one picked out already and it’s even on my Amazon wishlist—your one-stop shopping destination for buying me Christmas presents!

#5 Create. Look, I’m miserable, fat, tired, and cranky.  So, instead of falling into the trap of doing what would come naturally (i.e., becoming a right-wing radio talk show host), I’m going to try to direct what’s left of my energy toward being creative.  Writing songs, finishing my book, recording an audiobook, taking more photos.  I’m sure that all of my creative efforts will reek of Inner Fat Emo Kid, but that’s okay.  At least he’ll be so busy being tragic that he won’t be able to completely drag me down all winter.

And if all else fails, I suppose I could always dress up as my Inner Fat Emo Kid for Halloween.

No, I have not given up on my blog.

I apologize if any of you are the kind of reader who actually has to come to this blog to see if I’ve posted something new rather than using Google Reader or seeing the post on Facebook.  I’m sure that if you are that type of reader, you’ve probably already stopped reading this blog, because I’ve done such a bad job updating it for such a long time. 

I swear that there are reasons.  I’m not saying they’re good, I’m just saying that they are.

1) It’s been summer-like.  I don’t blog much in the summer.  I would prefer to be outside and enjoying the beautiful weather for the four hours a year that it lasts.  Sorry.

2) I’ve been writing. I haven’t been writing blog posts, per se, but I have been writing a lot lately.  Most nights, I pound out 2K-3K words on a book that I started writing a month ago.  It’s a memoir.  I’m about half-way done, and I’m 200 pages in.  I expect it will be thoroughly horrible when it’s done, but that’ what editing is for.  In the meantime, when I still have brain power left to write, I generally want to put it toward my book, and not my blog.  Sorry.

3) Work has been kicking my mental trash.  Now that it’s dark when I get to work and it’s dark when I leave work, I seem to be staying at work longer.  Which is fine.  Because then I’ll feel less guilty about leaving work earlier during the summer.  But it’s gotten a bit intense over the last couple of weeks, and by the time I come home, I barely have the mental energy to pay attention to the television, let alone try to string together something both witty and poignant.  Sorry.

4) I’m writing a song. I seem to write one song a year.  I started this as an exercise to see if I could write a song that didn’t sound like a love-sick wailing ballad from the 1980s.  It turns out that I can’t.  But I still like the lyrics, and I’m futzing around with a different chord progression to see if I can make it sound at least a little bit different than all the other songs I’ve ever written.  I still want to try writing more upbeat songs as well, so I’ll probably try picking up the pencil a few more times.  (A side note…I don’t have a single pencil in my apartment.  Christmas is coming up.  If you want to buy me something, I would love some mechanical pencils.  Quantity over quality.)

5) Open Book Audio – I’m redesigning a website using many of the skills I picked up at my day job.  When that’s done I found a great science fiction novella that I want to record as an audiobook, so I think I’ll try to get that recorded before I head down to Utah for Christmas so I have something to work on while I’m down there.

So, apologies for my delays in posting.  I wish I could say that I’m going to be better, but I’m probably not.  If I can keep making the same amount of progress on this book that I am now, then I will finish it over the next few months, and I can get back to writing on the blog.

More to come, I’m sure.

One of the perks of my new job is that once a year, I get a bonus which is a percentage of my annual salary (assuming we meet our revenue projections.)  This is the first time I’ve ever had a job where that was the case.  Our fiscal year ended in June, and I have been waiting with anticipation to determine whether or not we reached our revenue targets, and more importantly, when we would be getting our bonuses.

Last Tuesday, the bonuses were delivered. And lo, there was much rejoicing.

Over the last year, finances have been pretty tight for me.  My expenses increased pretty significantly when insurance rates went up (both health and auto/renters), rent went up, groceries and gas went up, and I got hit with a not-insignificant tax hit because of a foolish purchase I had made back in the middle of 2010.  My piano, while greatly loved, was not purchased the right way—by saving up until I could afford it.  So, to put it mildly, I haven’t been doing much in the way of shopping lately.  I have managed to sneak in a couple of trips to Kohl’s for clothing, but that’s about it.  Most of my paycheck these days go toward payin’ the bills.

That’s one of the reasons why I was so excited about this bonus.  I had several things that I had needed (and wanted) to purchase, but couldn’t afford to do so without putting them on credit.  Which I don’t do anymore.  So, when my bonus check came last Tuesday, I was itching with anticipation about getting back into the shopping mindset for a while.  Since then, I have learned something that is both simultaneously exciting and upsetting: I have grown to hate shopping.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  I started on Tuesday, when I purchased a new cell phone.  (Discussed in the previous post.)  My old one was falling apart.  I purchased my new phone on Tuesday during my lunch break.  And I love it. A lot. 

That kept me engaged for Tuesday.  Wednesday, I refocused my efforts on the amazingness that is Amazon.com.  I love Amazon.  I have multiple wishlists that I use to track all the things I would buy if I had the money.  I always go there first to check for pretty much anything that isn’t food.  I have a Prime membership, so I get free two-day shipping.  And I can even get same-day delivery on most of my purchases, because I live in an area where Amazon Fresh, their grocery delivery service, is available. 

Amazon’s purchases were pretty fun.  I got new ink for my large-format photo printer, and 17X22” paper, to print up some large prints of my photos to frame and hang up.  I figure for the cost of the ink, paper, and generic frames, I can get about 10 times more artwork than if I had to pay to have it printed up elsewhere.  I got a soil moisture detector ($5!) so I could make sure I don’t overwater my plants.  I bought bluetooth receivers for both my home stereo and my car, so I could listen to music through my phone without having to deal with plugging in the headphone jack over and over again.  (That’s how I screwed up my last phone).  I bought some amazing Drinking Chocolate and refills for Luke the Dog’s™ Everlasting Treat Ball.  I bought a second battery for my camera, and another pair of waterproof headphones as a backup for swimming.  Oh, and I got a 32gig MicroSD Card for my phone so I could put more music and videos on it.  That was done on Wednesday, through Amazon.  The ink for the printer was, by far, the most expensive of my purchases, so I had done pretty well.

Thursday, I actually paid all of my bills ahead one month.  You know…just to see what that felt like.

Friday, I did some more shopping on Amazon, but didn’t buy anything, because I wanted to leave stuff on my wish list for people to buy me for Christmas.

And then came the weekend:

The best purchase of this bonus season is this awesome sideboard that I purchased for my dining room.

It’s oak, 78” long, and has the most beautiful wood grain.  Since my existing furnishings are contemporary, this should fit right in, and now I can finally get all of my cooking stuff out of the pantry so I can use it for, you know, food.  I can also finally get my microwave off that ugly printer stand in my dining room.  Best part of this buy?  It was on clearance, so I got it for $500.  Actual big boy, solid wood furniture that doesn’t come in a flat-pack box or need to be assembled with an Allen wrench, and it only cost me $500!  (It was originally $1,100.)

So, I was pretty excited about finding this buy, but by now, I was getting awfully tired of consumerism.  It used to be that I found the hunt for the right thing to be exhilarating.  But even though I had managed to find this really cool thing for a great deal after going to five different furniture stores, I didn’t get that rush I normally get.  I was starting to get an inkling that, perhaps, my year without shopping had changed me fundamentally.

As if to drive that point home, I went to the mall.  I don’t go to the mall very often, but once upon a time (a year ago) I loved going to the mall and shopping for clothes.  If I ever needed confirmation that I was a changed man, this did it.  Just setting foot inside the mall send me off the cranky old man deep end.  Everything drove me crazy.  The music in all the stores was terrible and too loud.  None of the clothes fit my new, Reubenesque frame, every single sales person wanted my email to sign me up for a loyalty program. And, behold, my wrath was kindled mightily against a new foe.  A foe that embodies the full evil of American retail. My anger, which had been smoldering gently, burst into wildfire flames, fanned by the noxious aroma permeating the air surrounding the softcore porn shop, Abercrombie and Fitch.

I mean, really.  There’s a picture in the entrance of a naked man, the lights are low, there are dark shutters across all the windows, and there’s a reek of cheap (yet still expensive) perfume, as though the store was trying to cover up the scent of human feces, mildew, and desperation.  If I were walking by that and I didn’t know Abercrombie and Fitch sold clothing (something I’d never assume, since none of the people in the photos visible from the front of the store are ever wearing a stitch of clothing), I’d assume that it was a gay bathhouse.

I actually went inside A&F this time.  Ludicrously overpriced merchandise, which I could barely see because it was so dark, awful caterwauling coming from the sound system, and that horrible, horrible odor that the pump into the store.  I get wanting your store to smell nice, but A&F is like the 14 year-old using his dad’s aftershave for the first time to go to the big dance.  Just a quick dab behind the ears A&F.  You don’t need to bathe in it.  And more importantly, I don’t want to have to taste it if I happen to walk within a 200 foot radius of the front door of your store.  I was eating an Auntie Anne’s preztel, and I couldn’t taste it over the Eau du Rotted Flesh and Rosewater fog from your porno-shack.

(And don’t even get me started of A&F Kids.  Why are they using naked 15 year old boys to sell clothing to 8 year olds?)

I spent three hours in the mall, and I realized that shopping—especially clothes shopping—is a young person’s game.  I only have two days a week to relax and do what I want to do.  That time is valuable to me.  More valuable than going through racks of 70% clearance items in Chartreuse and Burn Orange just to find the one button-up shirt that doesn’t cost $87 and have the smell of Abercrombie and Fitch so deeply permeated that the only way you could get rid of it would be to burn the damn thing.

And, quite frankly, I just don’t care about looking good the way I used to.  I mean, if I did, I would pull my ironing board out more than once every six months.  I wouldn’t eat McDonald’s twice a week, and gorge on Jello Popcorn.  (Mmmmm.  Jello Popcorn.)  I wouldn’t cut what’s left of my hair by myself.  But I just don’t care anymore.  Also, men’s clothing is SO BORING.  It all looks the same.  It didn’t matter which store I went into.  You could have taken the clothes from Urban Outfitter, and stuck them in American Eagle, or the clothes from The Buckle and put them in Aeropostale.

And the net result of this whole shopping jag?  I got a button-up shirt, a hooded sweater, and two t-shirts.  And a hat. I couldn’t find the jeans in the size I wanted.  I couldn’t find decent underwear. And apparently, the color scheme this year is the mid 1990s-era red, green, and blue plaid…rather like the couch that my aunt and uncle gave me for my college apartment.  Sorry, but I’m just not going down that road again.

So, lessons learned:

• Shopping isn’t very much fun anymore. So you shouldn’t feel too bad about not doing it
• If you have to shop, use Amazon.
• Abercrombie & Fitch is the Hellmouth, and their perfumed air is the signal of the forthcoming apocalypse.
• I am officially too old and too fat to look good in any clothes that could possibly be considered hip, cool, or stylish.
• I am officially too cheap to spend the kind of money that cool, hip, or stylish people would to wear the kinds of clothes they wear
• It’s way more fun to shop for furniture than for clothing
• Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, looks good in a changing room mirror
• I really like the color purple.

Now, if I can just keep these lessons learned in the front of my mind, I won’t feel so tempted to go out shopping again at Christmas time.

Nevertheless, Oy! What a day!

I started the day early.  I woke up before my alarm, mostly excited because it was a) payday and b) the day we get our annual bonuses.  I’ve been waiting for my bonus for months now, and I have spent it probably 50 times over in my head.  Fortunately, I got most of that out of my system back in July, so now it’s not burning as big a hole in my pocket. As I lay in bed, I picked up my iPad and logged into my bank account, only to find that I had not, in fact, gotten my bonus.  That really set me on edge for the morning.

So, since I was up early, I got ready and went into work.  I had planned, instead, to go into work late because I was going to the Sprint store right when it opened to get my new phone.  But, since I hadn’t gotten my bonus, I couldn’t do that.  So work it was.  When I got to work, I discovered that they were doing the bonuses as paper checks this year because, “there were too many to do as direct deposit.”  Now granted, I don’t know a lot about the intricacies of payroll, but that seems a little counter-intuitive to me.  But whatever.  I got my bonus!

So, at lunch, I went to the bank, then went to the Sprint store and picked up my phone.  I only have two words to say about this new phone.  HAWT.  I know that looks like only one word, but trust me, the way I say it, it’s two.  (Use your imagination.)

Of course, once I got the phone, I was pretty much worthless for the rest of the day at work.  When you are a gadget whore, and you work for a technology company full of similarly-minded gadget whores, then people tend to flock to see your new technology.  Of course, my new phone wasn’t as exciting as the new Ferrarri that one of my co-workers bought last week, but still, new tech is new tech.  I spent the better part of the afternoon playing with it and getting it set up.

Since it was a slow day, and I had gotten to work early, I decided to take off and head home a little early.  I met one of my neighbors after I walked Luke the Dog™, and we drove down to some random dude’s house to purchase and cart back half a cord of firewood. 

I would like to take a moment to point out that 100 years ago, it would have taken  me at least a week to chop down a tree, cut it into lengths, and then split the wood.  It would have forced me to exercise and work up an appetite.  I would have been outside, enjoying the fresh air, and probably sweating like a fiend while trying to avoid getting eaten alive my mosquitoes and horse flies.  Instead, I spent 15 minutes looking on CraigsList, sent an email, got an email back with an address, got into a car, typed the address into my new phone, drove to the guy’s house, and just loaded up the back of a station wagon.  Presto:  in about 30 minutes time, I had enough firewood to last me most (if not all) winter long.  Note to self: don’t complain about having a boring job. Just be glad you don’t have to chop wood all day.  Although, if I did, I’d probably have a pretty rockin’ bod.

In any case, after moving a half-cord of wood not once, but three times and getting it stacked on my patio, I forced myself to watch about 15 minutes of Glee to see if it had gotten better from last season (it hadn’t.)  I watched The History Detectives because, apparently, I’ve given up on life and have settled into a rut of watching PBS shows about antiques to cement my status as everyone cranky, shut-in grandmother.  Who moonlights as a lumberjack.

Actually, that’s not fair.  My grandmother is way more active than I am.  (Note to self: go bowling with Grandma).

Then, finally, famished from my 30 minutes of physical exertion moving 18” segments of split logs, I decided that I needed a banana split.  So I loaded Luke into the car, went to DQ, ate my banana split (I almost abbreviated that as BS, but then I realized that just sounds wrong), and came home.  And now I’m writing this blog post.  And I’m about to take a bath to try to wash off all this tree sap. And then go lay in bed and play with my phone some more.

What a weird day.  If I hadn’t gone to work in the middle, it would have seemed like a great weekend day.  Instead, it feels sort of like the weekend, but it’s only Tuesday.

Which kinda makes today suck a little. But at least I got my bonus.

Where did summer go?
How’d I miss the change of seasons?
All at once the wind blows rough.
It’s cold enough to snow.
In the street below
People laugh, they got no reason
Don’t they know
It’s cold enough to snow.

And while this song is actually about how miserable the singer is that his or her love has gone away that it simply feels cold enough to snow, the lyrics above fairly accurately depict how I feel about the current state of the weather.  If I liked to exaggerate and be melodramatic.  Which I do.

I woke up a week ago, went outside, and said out loud to Luke the Dog™, “It feels like Halloween.”  Just the day before it had been in the upper 70s and sunny.  The next morning, it just all felt different.  Like, I suppose Halloween.  I don’t know if it was the quality of the light, the fact that it dropped 25 degrees, it was cloudy again, or that yesterday when I had awakened at this time, it was light, and today it was still dark outside.  But it’s like summer ended in one fell swoop and it was instantly fall.

Now, I normally like autumn (although, as I’ve mentioned, I do rather loathe Halloween), but for the last two years, the summers up here in Seattle have been just this side of miserable.  The first two summers I spent up here were beautiful, dry, and LONG.  The last two years, they didn’t start until late July and were over by early September.  What used to be a 5 month-long summer has, for the last two years been a 2 month-long summer.  I’m just not ready to go back into another 10 months of cloudiness and incessant drizzle.  I hope we get another little blast of Indian summer coming up here soon.

Despite all that, I’m starting to get into the autumnal mood:  rather like preparing to hibernate.  I’m starting to get into a “projecty” mood, focusing on things like writing a book, recording audiobooks, working on websites, working on that album project I started, like, five years ago.  You know, the kind of thing you’d be stupid to spend your time indoors doing during the summer.  I’ve also been “putting up” the last few remnants of my garden in preparation for closing it down for the winter.  I made a huge batch of tomato sauce last night, and I’ll probably make another batch or two in the next week or so.  I also cut the corn off the cobs and froze it.  I’ve got to do something with all of the Anaheim, Poblano, and Jalapeno peppers that I got this year.  I’m thinking about making a green chile sauce that I can use on Green Chile Cheeseburgers and with slow-roasted pork and beef for tacos.

I’m also going to purchase a half-cord of firewood tomorrow.  I have a wood-burning fireplace in my apartment, and dangit, I’m going to use it.  Last year I spent $5 for those little plastic-wrapped bundles of firewood from the grocery story.  That, and those stupid engineered fire logs.  That is not going to happen again this year.  So, if any of my Seattle-area friends want to come over for some hot chocolate, a fire, and a good movie (Lord of the Rings is particularly enjoyable with a roaring fire in the grate), or perhaps a bit of S’mores making, then casa de Matt y Luke the Dog™ will be the place to be.

In other news, I am about to buy a new cell phone.  If you know me, this shouldn’t seem like such a big deal.  I buy a new cell phone about every 10 months.  But this time, It’s a HUGE deal.  This is the first time since I owned a cell phone when I was actually eligible for an upgrade without paying the early termination fee.  I have owned this phone for two years and over three months.  It’s astonishing.  But it’s time.  My phone’s headphone jack doesn’t work, so I can’t use it to listen to audiobooks/podcasts/music.  It doesn’t get good reception, so I can’t use it to make phone calls. It’s slower than Michelle Bachman trying to speak coherently, so I can’t use it to run apps. It can’t connect to my wi-fi, so I can’t use it to surf the net.  So, really, I have a portable alarm clock.  So, I’m finally getting a new phone.  And I’ve waited so long, I’m actually giddy about it.  And more than a little proud of myself.  I actually exercised a bit of self-restraint when it came to the purchase of technology.  Also, can we just say how far we have come in cell phones.  Below is my cell phone history:

There was one other one in there, but I couldn’t find a picture of it.  *Sigh*. 

Alas, the new phone will be hawt.  To wit:

For the tech nerds:

• 1.2 gHz dual-core processor
• 1 G Ram
• 32 Gigs Storage (16 built in + 16 in MicroSD card)
• 8MP Camera on the back (can to up to 1080p video)
• 2MP front-facing camera for video calls
• Android 2.3.4
• 4G

It’s been very hard for me to not go out and buy a phone for so long, so I’ve decided that since I’ve done such a good job, I’m going to make a little celebration of it.  I’m going into work late tomorrow, because I’m going to go to the store and buy my phone as soon as it opens.  ‘Cuz that’s how I roll.

And also, ‘cuz I wanna.

So, yes, perhaps summer is over.  But the coming of fall does happen to coincide with Bonus season!