According to Cosmo

These are the 40 things you ladies could learn about me in ten minutes:

• I am an independent thinker, usually on the sensitive side, because I don't like sports.


• Loyalty is one of my strong suits, but it will take a while for you to win my trust because I have long lasting friendships.


• I'm self-sufficient and independent because I pay with cash.


• I could be a hard nut to crack because I don't like phones. (Somehow this means I'm inscrutable)


• I'm an earthy, laid-back guy who likes equally laid-back, low-maintenance chicks, because I like women who don't dress up every night.


• I'm likely to have more self-control because I don't have road rage.


• I'm steady and dependable, but also a little unadventurous because I like steak and potatoes.


• I'm looser and more open-minded because I'm neither a neat freak nor an obsessive compulsive hoarder.


• I'm analytical and thoughtful because I don't watch sitcoms.


• I'm usually a responsible, take-charge kind of guy because I'm the first born of my brood.


• I'm likely to let you steer the relationship at least some of the time because I don't always insist on driving.


• I'm a low-key, less conceited guy. I might be less ambitious, but I'm easier to connect with emotionally because I'm not superficial. This is because I'm not a narcissistic freak who checks out his own reflection every ten seconds.


• I might be trying to intimidate you because I make eye contact when speaking to you.


• I typically play it safe because I don't talk a mile a minute.

Now, those math majors out there, or really anyone who's capable of counting to fourteen, you might notice that there aren't forty things listed here. That would be because Cosmo writers apparently think that if you could learn one of three possible outcomes from a single observation that all three count instead of just one. It would appear that Cosmo writers aren't math majors.

Also, if you're like me, you're also looking at some of these things you could "learn" and thinking, "Dude, seriously?" I don't like sports, so therefore I'm sensitive? What? Isn't that a wildly sweeping generalization that is as likely to be untrue as it is to be true? I won't go so far as to say Cosmo writers are misandronous, but they sure think we men are predictable.

I guess what I'm saying is, don't read Cosmo? At the very least don't take it too seriously.

This is almost too much cat

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/6798/af20907621cbf76cee7547eco9.jpg

Almost.

CHICK BANDS DON'T HELP EITHER!

Ok, that is all.

Mental note

When you're dealing with the anxious period of meeting a girl and liking her, what's the one thing you should avoid like the plague?

LISTENING TO THE BLUES YOU IDIOT.

That is all.

So I met a girl...

Yes, yes, very funny. I met a girl. I know, it's shocking. You're such a comedian.

Moving on.

I met a girl, for reals, via a friend whom I owe a fairly serious favor. I heard stories from my friend of how I might just like this girl. She likes some of the music I like, isn't remotely bothered by gaming of any sort, might find the fact that I am a writer neat, etc etc...

The first I saw of her was actually via OkCupid since I am still a Facebook snob and refuse to join up, even if it is an easier way to "meet" the girl. The pictures she posted were far better than the average OkC user, as hers included both face shots and "action" shots where you could see below her neck. The fact that she was very attractive was almost an afterthought. Almost.

We started talking, emailing, and immediately seemed to get along. Cheesy movie? Mel Brooks? Monty Python? Check, check, and double check. Asked her out just short of immediately? Hell yes. Though the first plans fell through, I still got to meet her on Saturday past.

Meeting in person was nice since she a) looked like her pictures, b) looked better than her pictures, and c) was just as interesting in person as she was online. I really liked meeting her, and I thought maybe she liked me too. The friend who arranged the meeting told me, after she had to leave, "Stop grinning like an idiot." I gave him the props he deserved.

So now we're in the realm of we've met but we're still not sure what exactly is going on. I really want to play it cool, but it's hard not to be overly enthusiastic about this. We've exchanged emails, mentioned the idea of plans, but nothing is solid yet. I hope it will be soon, but I will still try to play it cool...

Ish. Coolish. Down enthusiasm! Down!

Sushi is complicated!

I stole this video from Digg. They stole it from YouTube first, but I'm stealing it second! And it's about Sushi! Yosh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruh0TJJopn8

This is a weird video. If you get Japanese culture it will be a lot funnier since it's basically eight minutes of mocking Japanese culture, but it's kinda funny on its own just from being insane. Even while trying to mock the Japanese the video itself is very Japanese. Anyways, I thought it was hilarious, so I share!

The Rule of Threes + ice = adrenaline rush

So a bit over a week ago, one of my D&D friends got into a fairly serious accident. Though both cars were seriously injured, no one was hurt and it was relatively easy to deal with the insurance and police. It was a fairly shitty night for my friend, but all in all it wasn't the worst case scenario by any stretch of the imagination.

Perhaps a week later, while giving my friend a ride to something or other, my sunroof, rather than opening, jammed itself into a partially open state and then refused to anything else. I tinkered with it, but I'm going to need to take it to Saturn to get it repaired, or at least closed so rain and show don't just melt into my car.

Last night I heard from another of our D&D friends that he, who drives school buses, got into an accident. Someone decided to stop dead ahead of him in the middle of a 55mph zone and though the idiot who stopped escaped without being touched, my friend's bus totaled the poor car between them. This may lead to immediate termination of my friend's job.

So last night at the game, the bus driver made a comment about the "rule of threes", how bad things always seem to come in threes. The first accident, my sunroof breaking, the second accident. I didn't say anything, as I had no wood to knock on, but I thought "my broken sunroof hardly seems like it counts." Turns out I shouldn't have even thought anything.

When leaving the D&D game last night I had to take several minutes to de-ice my car, as everything had frozen nicely. The roads were also dicey at best, so I was definitely both on my guard and driving slower than normal. It didn't help that I was dog tired, but one does what one must to get home at night. When I was only two, three minutes away from home, that "rule of three" came after me with a vengeance.

I was driving slightly above the speed limit through a long since green light when the person coming up to the red, who hadn't noticed the red, tried to emergency stop. On ice. So he pulled out directly in font of me when I had just entered the intersection.

Motherfucker.

Fortunately my nearly instantaneous reaction of punch brakes, depress clutch, and grab the steering wheel prepared for emergency avoidage was perfectly timeed. The idiot, realizing that both I and another car behind me were in danger of crashing right into the guy jammed on his accelerator in an attempt to get out of the way. At this point my ABS was clicking like crazy, trying to help me stop on the slick roads. When the idiot's back tires let go and started to swing at me, I realized I had two choices: hit this idiot, or steer like a madman and potentially crash into a curb.

While not letting up on the brakes, I steered right to get around the idiot, and managed to miss his rear bumper by about, oh, six inches. Then I immediately turned left, hard and prayed my tires and brakes were up to the job. Thankfully they were, I managed to miss the curb by inches as well. It was then that I noticed I was between the wildly fishtailing idiot and the curb, so I just kept the brakes on till he moved away from me.

"Holy fucking shit that was close!" I believe is what I said. I let the idiot pull away and turn at the next corner before I started moving again. I had to move quickly as the people behind me didn't appear to have noticed the near accident and weren't slowing down. My adrenaline was pumping at that point, but I forced myself to calm down and drive home.

I made it home without further incident.

So I guess that Rule of Three is out to get me. Now I have to be extra careful about everything. Know what I have to say about that?

Fuck you Rule of Three!

Fox One!

Two posts in two days! I know, I'm as confused as you are.Well, this is an interesting bit of news, so it's worthy of a post.

I've finally sent my submission packet for my first novel to Tor. According to their website I now have to wait four to six months before I can expect to hear anything from them, including "fuck off you talentless prick". So I've probably got a while to go before I even hear anything at all about being published. No matter, I'm working on short story submissions here and there. All I have to do is find online easy submission places and then tailor stories to fit within their draconian word limits. You'd think it would be easy to fit a short story in five thousand words, but then again, you wouldn't be writing like me.

Anyway, that's my publishing attempt news. I'll let you know more as I know more!

Flying Solo

Today I reached a very important goal in my life: I ended my CBT sessions with my therapist. I didn't say "I don't feel like doing this anymore" and just quit. I didn't even bring the subject up. My therapist asked me if I felt that I was ok to start trying to make it in life without her help. She was encouraged by my recent successes, without much anxiety, in life, and job, and dating. And, as she had very good points, I took her up on her challenge.

This may seem like a bad idea to some of you, and I do have some reservations about being on my own again, but, to horribly massacre a metaphor, I have been riding the bike of life with the helping hand of therapy firmly on the handle of improvement while I traverse the rocky road of life, job, and dating. Over time the hand's grip on the handle has grown looser as I've gotten better, but eventually, as with every parent trying to give their children permanent road burn scars, the hand has to let go to let the bike so that he who rides the bike can move on and prove that he can ride without help or crash and burn and run screaming back to mom with blood dribbling out of his multiple wounds.

A perhaps less stupid way of putting it is: The next step in getting better is to do it alone. I'll still have my psychiatrist to help me, but he's more of a passive observer than a direct influence on my mental health. The drugs he gives me are what I need most now.

And, in case you were worried, there's no way in hell I'm going off the drugs. I ain't that much better. The drugs were necessary to get me to the point in life where I could actually get better. Now that I am improving, over time, perhaps I will begin to decrease the drugs, but for now, they keep me in a holding pattern of good health. With time, in theory, I will continue to get better, and will slowly lose the need for the drugs. I expect I'll always have trouble sleeping and will have occasional anxiety attacks, but it is my hope that I'll get to the point where the drugs will be there to help when I need them and I won't always need them. This may not be for years, but it's a goal.

And while I may be flying solo, I won't be alone because I know you'll always be there for me.