Where I go to change the status of MY ENTIRE LIFE to “It’s fucking complicated!”?

Not sure this qualifies as a “gun”, but, there it is…

Great selection of hats in this place…

I seem to be turning over a lot of followers lately, I guess the old ones have had enough of me. So, here’s some more random stuff about me by way of introduction.

1. I’m a wanderer. I’ve lived in 8 different states so far, 9 by the end of summer. (suggestions?)
2. I have grapheme-color-number form synesthesia. I see numbers and letters floating in 3 dimensional space around me, and they all have specific places and colors. Same with calendars, dates, etc.
3. I’ve been playing video games since Pong was introduced.
4. I’ve been shot (it was a ricochet, just a good bruise).
5. I’ve been charged by a bear (it was a bluff, he changed his mind).
6. I grew up 20 miles from the Unabomber’s cabin (that picture you see on the news? My cousin Terry took that, he worked for the tax assessor’s office).
7. I’ve had two encounters with something I can’t explain, but suspect was something like a sasquatch. It’s been 30 years, I still can’t explain them.
8. I lived in Seattle in the late 80s early 90s. That grunge band you love? I saw them in a tiny club.
9. I turned 45 years old last weekend.
10. I have self-published 2 novels.
11. I can’t really answer the question, “How many tattoos do you have?” They’re all kind of running together into one big one. Like, 10 pieces, I guess. Shoulders, back and calves, how’s that?
12. My favorite sports teams are the Vikings, Rockies, Avalanche, and the Oregon Ducks.
13. My mother changed the course of my life with a Dear Abby quote. YESTERDAY.

1. Older. Wiser. Weirder.
2. Writer, vegan, atheist.
3. SCUBA diver, Segway owner.
4. I will text anyone, anytime, about anything. Right now that’s a total of about 3 people. Not looking for a date, that’s just my preferred method of communication. Add me on kik. Or PM or email, or…something. Carrier pigeon. Whatever. Contact info on my page.
5. I’m about to be living on my own for the first time since most of you were toddlers.
6. I love pretty much all sports.
7. I drive a really cool car.
8. I’m an avid gamer (Xbox).
9. I will be leaving town in about 5 months for parts unknown. I am open to suggestions.
10. I have an inconvenient medical condition that keeps me in pain and injuries and surgeries on a regular basis. Apparently I was an evil bastard in a previous life. No big deal, everyone has their issues.

Welcome and Cheers!

-Bob

Miss Bailey and I are lounging

These days I’m not as happy as I used to be. I’m not as fun, I’m don’t shine as bright. I used to be present, focused…okay, not focused, but I had a sense of purpose. Kind of.

Now I struggle with depression and fear. Angst.

Midlife crisis? Probably.

I feel trapped and lost and adrift and gray.

I feel like I need to just get away, to run, to just drive until the wheels fall off. Maybe they’ve fallen off already. Entirely possible. There are places I want to go, things I want to see, hell, there are even some of you that I’d like to sit down and have a beer with.

So many people fear being alone, I am not one of those people. And right now, being alone seems like the only thing for me. I need to sit in a quiet place and let the noise drain out of my head. I need a tiny space and minimal stuff.

Running from responsibility? Trying to avoid being an adult? Trying to recapture my youth? Probably.

All of my friends are electronic anyway, I’m not really sure any of you actually exist. Doesn’t mean I don’t love you, you’re the best computer-generated imaginary friends I’ve ever had. Thanks for that.

So, in the next month or so there will be some changes around here. Good, bad, ugly, otherwise. I’m going to turn my life upside down and shake it until the change falls out of its pockets.

These days are not much fun, but I’m working on that.

I’ll keep you posted.

Throwback Thursday, minimal ink edition.

Me in a Jamaican hot tub, circa 2001, shortly before my Irish skin burst into flames.

There’s too much noise in there to think properly, to have a coherent thought, sometimes. What I’m doing, where I’m going, it all gets lost in the cacophony of random bullshit that’s bouncing wall to wall. When that happens, I tend to shut down.

I have a beer, I have ten.

I get so introverted I become a black hole, forever collapsing inward. Make a friend, lose a friend, fall in love, watch it disintegrate, reach out, get slapped away. It’s safer in my head, even though it’s like a war zone. A blasted landscape of shattered neurons and the smoking remnants of the pillars of my self.

Have a beer, have ten.

Take some pills, curse the pain. The physical pain is real, I can touch it, I can make it worse but not better, mental anguish is like smoke in the wind, just try to nail that to the wall. I watch my phone, I check to make sure it’s working, turn it on, turn it off, give it a shake, plug it in.

Have a beer, have ten.

Stare at the television, wander through the web. I wonder who you are and what you’re doing. Then play some music, LOUD, try to drown the noise. Rub my eyes, take a deep breath.

Maybe I’ll have a beer.

My hair is bothering me.

Now, this may be related to *other* issues that are currently threatening to drive me out of my own skin, but that’s neither here nor hair.

My hair looks better when it’s long, I know that. Not really long, just sort of, I don’t know, business casual type long. When my hair was really long, it was more comfortable because I could pull it back and be done with it. By ‘really long’ I mean that it took 4 rubber bands to hold it back, and it was so long I could sit on it, literally. I didn’t get a haircut for 5 years. It was Seattle in the late 80s early 90s, the grunge explosion, I lived in music-filled clubs, you’re jealous, I know.

Dude, get to the point.

It’s hot. When I’m on the bike, it makes me overheat. Wind messes it up. The color is better, because, it’s red, duh, but I can’t roll out of bed and go out of the house without showering or putting on a hat. When it’s short, oh, so comfortable, and I can drive with my window down.

So, here I sit, clippers in one hand, typing with the other…

This has been a post.

1. I’m obsessed with building my own trebuchet.

2. I’m a raving insomniac.

3. Although I love to cook - I’m not a good eater.

4. Meyers-Briggs type INTJ. I also have extreme social anxiety, crowds of people (i.e. more than 1) make me nauseous and panicky (Work is very hard most days).

5. I haven’t been to a movie theater in over 8 years (see #4).

6. I’ve lived in 8 different states, always fighting the wanderlust, every day.

7. I have music playing in my head all the time, every minute of every day, Now Playing - Biffy Clyro - Stingin’ Belle

8. I was an honors student in algebra, geometry and calculus, but sheet/written music utterly baffles and frustrates me to tears, which is why I’ve given up every instrument I’ve ever tried to learn.

9. I have numeric synesthesia, I see numbers in a 3 dimensional pattern around me and they all have specific places and colors, if you say a number I can point to it in space.

10. I have absolutely no fear of falling.

11. One of my greatest disappointments in life is that my body won’t allow me to be a firefighter (especially since I was damn good at it for a short time).

12. I love silent movies.

13. I have Ehler-Danlos Syndrome, 1 kidney and a slightly defective liver (which causes lots of secondary medical issues)

14. If there were a decent living in it I’d be a professional student.

15. I only listen to the radio in my car on odd-numbered volume levels.

16. I have an outrageous, bordering on phobic, aversion to fingernail files and emery boards.

17. I write constantly just to get the noise out of my head.

18. I delete most of what I write.

19. I am crippled with nostalgia for times I never lived in (ie Paris in the 1920s)

20. I eat my French fries with mayo and mustard on them.

No shave November results, with the unwashed hair of the unemployed…

Three weeks in, and no-shave November is good and red (and gray)

No-shave November, Day One (with new glasses).