Tag: sadness

Sadness is Flowing Through Me and I’m Totally Cool With It

...then she sent this immediately after. Good one, skank.

I was introduced to the idea of “mindfulness” around four years ago by my therapist.

Now it’s all the rage and there are books on how to be mindful in business, weight loss, parenting, and even extreme kiteboarding.

Basically it boils down to just paying goddamn attention to what’s going on inside. READ MORE

Check Out This Crazy Note Left On My Friend’s Car

I mostly just throw tantrums

My friend received a crazy note on her car yesterday.

She had not done the best parking job. She works in a high rise building in the downtown area of Chicago. The garage where she parks is only ever around half full. She woke up late and was hustling to work. By the time she made it to the parking garage she was flustered. She parked the car in a half-assed manner and ran to the elevator. Because of all the empty space she didn’t think twice about it. READ MORE

Swimming in the Soup – BandBackTogether BlogAThon

Originally posted at Oculus Mundi

I spent about 6 or 7 weeks of my life, just recently, mired so deep in melancholia it was difficult to even get out of bed in the morning.  Such a cliché, but in this case it was the literal truth.   I shied away from consciousness and all it brought with it.   In the deepest parts of the trough, it was not possible to even think of troubling myself to write about it, the necessary cohesion, energy, clarity, coherency was just not available.   I was barely able to manage text messages to assuage the concerns of friends.   READ MORE

Worries in the Night – Band Back Together BlogAThon

Originally posted at One Day at a Time

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Night is not a good time for me. The time when I’ve finished reading all my feeds, and all my online friends in other time zones were in bed hours ago, and finding something to occupy my mind becomes more difficult. Or even worse, when I’m settling down to try and sleep. It’s not always a good idea to leave me alone with my thoughts, with nothing to keep them at bay. READ MORE

Words Like White Elephants – Band Back Together Blogathon

Sometimes, we at the Band know that part of owning who you are is admitting it to the world. It’s one reason why we at The Band work tirelessly to break down stigmas and find the ties that connect us all, the ties that remind us that we are none of us alone. Please join us in standing tall and proud as we tell the world who we are. READ MORE

My Ex-Wife Got Married (But I’m Pretty Sure Still Uses My Last Name)

In a ironic twist, my family is Spanish. 0% French.

This morning I was hit with something that I wasn’t expecting.

My ex-wife just got married. I was made aware of this because my veterinarian emailed my ex-wife who forwarded it to me. This is a little complicated. Explanation necessary, D.J.!

Christina and I divorced over two and half years ago. I still contact her every once in a while. We’re perfectly friendly and sometimes I need advice on pet stuff. She, too, is a vet. Well, my dog is due for a dental. This is a relatively routine procedure but when I called the animal hospital yesterday, the vet tech had expressed interest in giving her a catheter for anesthesia. My dog is very sensitive to shots and has become sick in the past for this kind of thing. My ex has instructed me to call her before any procedure to give the go-ahead. I’m glad she’s available as she’s a great doctor. READ MORE

The Low After the High (and all that cliche crap)

The is a valley - get it? Because I'm in an emotional valley you bastards!

Last night I participated in a webinar where I taught somewhere between one hundred and two hundred people about my creative process for posting every day.

It’s funny because a few years back I wasn’t even writing at all. I don’t consider myself a “good” writer. I’m skilled at coming up with daily ideas. The webinar was exactly this topic – how to come up with blog posts in daily life. I prepared quite a bit and over 215 people signed up for the event. I couldn’t believe more than ten would. I’m not that popular, for chrissakes. READ MORE

Blue Light Therapy and Staring Into the Sun

See, this chick looks normal doing it! I just look creepy.

My girlfriend bought me a blue therapy light for Christmas.

I did a bunch of research on blue lights to see if they do, in fact, help to alleviate depression. Now, I don’t actually have depression. Well, not in the clinical sense. Sure I cry each morning when I awake, but that’s because the weight of the world is squarely resting on my shoulders! You know, normal thoughts. The blue light was appealing as it could help me to feel better and isn’t a destructive high. READ MORE

366 Posts in 366 Days (or… How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Challenge)

I wanted to end this experiment of posting every day for a year with a few reflections…

  • I have no discipline – I can’t tell you how many projects I’ve started over the years that have not come to completion. In my mind the last time I really worked at something I consider disciplined was when I worked out six days a week for six months without missing. That was ten years ago. Ten years before that I sat in my basement and mastered a Joe Satriani piece entitled Day at the Beach on the guitar. That’s it. I have ADD which is great for creativity but not with staying on task. Somehow I was able to just make this a must every day. I missed most of my flossing, but I never missed writing. No idea how I did it. Am I a superhero? Sure. Why not?
  • I never thought I could write every day (with decent content) – Before this I only wrote if I had something I pondered for a few days and I was absolutely certain was going to be well-received. As a result of this strategy, I almost never produced. I waited for home runs which rarely came. After day seven in January I had run out of home runs. Nothing had happened that particular day and I was screwed. Within a few months I realized I was developing improv chops. Since my average day is pretty boring and I don’t have great stories from my past I focused on finding the humor and emotion in everyday life. While not easy, after 365 straight reps, the muscle is now well-developed.
  • Readers relate to honesty – Frankly, I always considered myself a humorist. I am funny. That’s my thing. But when I started this year I was into a new relationship, but still healing from my divorce. I had a lot of anger, sadness, fear and shame that was bubbling to the surface. While terrifying to me, I decided to take the plunge and write about these feelings without the need to pepper them with jokes. Comedy often did come up naturally, but it wasn’t something I manually added to make the posts more readable. What happened was that my comments increased significantly. Readers seemed to appreciate the raw honesty and I believe people felt more connected to me and the work.
  •  Engagement is the key – I have always wanted to build a community with this blog. The only way I know how to do this (since I write about myself) was to engage the readers. Even though I’m still over 400 comments behind, my goal is to reply to every single comment. I don’t do this because it will “get” me more loyalty, although it does often do that. I remember seeing Ozzy Osbourne once talking about his fans and he almost started crying saying how grateful he is to have people that want to listen to his music. I’m not half as talented as him, but I feel the same. The fact that someone wants to read my stuff still blows me away. So, thank you!
  • Put my head down and write – I have long since retired the idea of being famous from a blog. My posts won’t go viral. My readership increases by a handful every day. That’s it. No shortcuts. And I’ve learned so much of life is just hard-work. And that’s the good news. Hard work beats out talent almost every time. With hard work I can hit singles and doubles every day. I’ll leave the home runs to the book I’d like to pen. Other than that, it’s just a matter of getting up early and making the donuts.

Well, that’s it. I also learned you sickos love posts about genitals, farts, sadness, shame, anything where I end up embarrassing myself, and videos where I don’t realize I’m making a joke until after I’ve made it and then laugh hysterically at my own wit. Okay, maybe not the last one. READ MORE