Living a Dream

There's a commonly used expression that says you should do something every day that scares you. I'm not so sure that this is a safe practice because I don't have the money to do a lot of scary things like parachuting, alligator wrestling, heli -skiing, or asking someone to marry me (easily the scariest on the list). That leaves me with less expensive fear options like driving on the wrong side of the road, walking into the Crip neighborhood with Blood colors on, or what I did today; stand on the top of a really shaky ladder and paint a barn on a very windy day. I realize that painting a barn isn't gonna get me the street cred that Coolio has, but I'll be damned if I didn't feel a gust of wind, wobble a little bit, feel my heart skip a beat, and then laugh about how awesome it was. My point is this: How great is that feeling? How cool is it to know that something could have gone horribly wrong, but it didn't? Does anything make you feel more alive than that...

I planned on writing a poem to a complete stranger who happened to be my 100th follower. Instead, I'm now going to write a poem to Mike Eppich ( @Mike_Eppich on Twitter). Mike came in as my 100th follower. On the one hand, that's fun...on the other hand, he was my 40th (ish) follower who then decided to unfollow me in hopes of becoming my 100th follower and recipient of said poem. The shame is that it actually worked. The reason I have such a 'tude toward this character is because I played baseball with him for a couple years and have kept in very close touch with him ever since. He specifically requested that I do not write a haiku for him. So here's a haiku for him. Mike just quit his job He probably sucked at it 'Cause Mike Eppich sucks. So that's a start. But I feel like that's a total cop-out. Check out @Mike_Eppich and you can read his little bio, It's where he uses ellipses to fake some James Bond style. It falsely claims he works and sells unifor...

You've probably read it, heard it, or seen it tattooed on someone, but there's a saying that starts with "dance like no one's watching..." It's supposed to be a way of saying "be yourself," or something along those lines. There's more to it, but the point is that you should be yourself and not be afraid of what other people think about your questionable dancing ability. I have two emphatic words for that expression. Screw. That. What fun is it to dance when nobody's watching? Where's the thrill? Where's the adrenaline? Where's the motivation to try something crazy? I'm not just talking about dancing anymore, this is bigger. Don't do things like they don't matter, do things like they're the most important thing in your life. Make everything count, right? Give me one good reason not to. Let's say you're writing a blog post. It doesn't matter if only three people are going to read it, you should write it ...

Someone asked me today: if my life were made into a movie, would I watch it? HELL YES, I WOULD. Upon answering so emphatically, she called me out for being cocky. Here is my extended answer, including teasers, cliff-hangers, and the possible title. I justify my arrogance by saying that if I don't believe in my product, who in the world is going to see it? The movie about me would be executive produced by me, obviously. I have the final say in what goes and what doesn't. If my life were made into a movie, only the most important parts would make it...it would be like a 23 year highlight reel crammed into 2 hours and 12 minutes (any longer and I'm risking a major walk-out-to-pee-and-miss-the-important-stuff crowd reaction). For the meaty part, think about all the great things this movie would have! It would feature sports, love, friendships, hardships, heartbreaks, family bonds, and most importantly...frontal male nudity. Name one thing from that list that doesn't appear ...

Well, I got a job. Far from perfect, but I'm employed. I'm working in the Cavs team shop at the Q...which is cool. It's majorly part time, so I'm still looking into other things whenever I can. The story here lies in my first day. I found out I got the job on Friday and was starting Monday...in the team shop...on the day of a home game. That is to say that I was being tossed into the proverbial fire despite zero retail experience whatsoever (but at least I didn't lie about that in the interview, so I got that going for me). Not as intimidating as I'm making it out to be, but one could understand that it was a slightly tense drive downtown. Anyway, I got to the shop a little before 5:00 and was a little confused with the way things were going, but I got ushered through it all and made sense of what was going on. I was to be the guy in the Witness section; basically I'd just help people get stuff in that section and that was it. Well, the store doesn't op...

I have these flashes where I want to write something that changes the world. I want to write things like "I don't care if you're gay, you're still human" but then I ruin it by adding things like "and as a human, you're likely an idiot." It could be cynicism (or as cynics call it, realism), but I keep wanting to say important things and then realize that it's just not my style. I can have a serious conversation with you if you'd like, but I will undoubtedly interject silly quips and whatnot. The problem is that I like serious conversations...I just like making snide comments just as much. So far, over the last week, this blog has been mostly on par with that - the real-life issues I'm having and the not-so-effective but ultimately therapeutic ways I deal with it (which is by writing...I think that's clear). So maybe I should try. I never thought of myself as a particularly tolerant person, but I also didn't think of myself as being...

Here I sit. It's 1:00 a.m. and I have no reason to be awake. I'm house-sitting, so the dog will probably wake me up around 7, but I'm not even really trying to go to sleep. Why would anyone do something so stupid? It's not like I'm watching something interesting or helping someone through a crisis. I'm not really doing anything. I'm just dilly-dallying on the internet. For instance, right now I have tabs opened to Twitter (holla! @kevinpnye !), facebook, livejournal (so I can read Coke's blog), and google analytics (which can be attributed to Lauren). Before I go to bed I will invariably check my email (guaranteed to be nothing new), refresh Twitter, probably breeze through espn.com (even though I could turn on the channel instead), may find something good on youtube, and then I'll end up watching a movie on netflix.com. The question really becomes "what in the hell did I do before the internet??" . I like to think that I've blocked out...