Today

March 17, 2015

I have had an epiphany. I have begun to think that there is nobody out there, at least presently, that is suitable to be with me. I am too busy, too focused. I have my goals and I will make those goals. I'm going back to the gym this week for real. The ONLY reason I haven't is because I was afraid of people making fun of me for "working out wrong." Fuck that. I don't care anymore. I will listen to my music run and lift and not give a damn. I'm focused on my work, my schooling and my ongoing internship. Today I was tasked with booking some radio  interviews for the bossman. He also wants me to completely tackle his PR campaign for a movie releasing in a month anyway I see fit. I got an advanced screening of the movie,  look at me go.

I think I need to wait until I am older to get serious with anyone. What I need is support and I just fear that the people I have considered as my other half aren't the supportive type. I go out of my way to support others, it would be nice is all. If these individuals could prove to me that they would be able to support me and understand that I won't always be there but that doesn't mean I don't care. It doesn't mean I'm not still thinking about them 24/7, it doesn't mean I don't love them. This is the kind of person I need.

I'm just thinking, and scheduling,  and thinking some more. All I hear swimming around in my head right now is: work, PR, intership, MONEY, school,  alcohol, and then fighting with those thoughts are my more human emotions. It's so hard to balance the two sometime.

And I know what you're thinking now. What about sex? Truth is, I don't know; as lame as it sounds I think I care more about the person and the emotional connection then the sex. You know,  yeah it's cool and it feels good but it isn't everything. It's so easy to get drunk and fuck. It's so easy to have sex. But what's hard is making that emotional connection. What's hard, especially for me, is expressing how I feel towards another person. I'll get there someday.

This is what happens when I have school followed by work. I get to thinking.

Laters baby. (Do you get the reference?  I'm so ashamed.)

I am alive. Really alive.

March 13, 2015

The last time you heard from me was about a month ago right? Maybe more? Anyways I suppose I should get you up to speed on what's been going on since my disappearance. In the last month and a half, I.have.changed. I don't just mean physically, but mentally. I am different than I used to be. I feel as if this may be why I haven't written in so long. A lot has happened. A lot has changed. Evidently, I am going to reveal my true identity within the contents of this post. Or at the very least I will reveal my first name out of fear of what could happen to me if I reveal everything. God I feel like Amy Elliot Dunne writing this. (Just finished reading Gone Girl, messed me up real good.)

In the last couple of months since the semester has begun, I have gotten fat again, (I think so, no one else does) was affected by a particularly nasty spell of SAD; (Literally sadness brought on by the winter - seasonal effective disorder) I have been kicking absolute ass at school, my grades are astronomical. I have become a quasi-alcoholic, depending on that drink every weekend to take the stress out of my life. I have borderline hooked up with randoms multiple times, including a guy (yes, you read that right) who was trying to get into my pants while I was blacked out, although I think he was too. If he wasn't he certainly acts like it, I've seen him the past two days on campus. I only know about the ordeal because I came to in the middle of him caressing my hand, and I promptly ran away. That story will most definitely be part of my lost files which I will write hopefully over spring break. What else has happened? Oh! I signed a lease on a house with two of my friends from school, and we all have a little bit of a bromance among the three of us. It's"adorkable." I move out and into my place April 1st. (April fools! Except not really, because it's actually happening.) I worry about myself this summer in the house alone most of the time because my roomies will be returning to their hometowns. I lived like a pilgrim for exactly 4 days when my phone met an unfortunate end. I got into a car accident and fled the scene, only to be followed and screamed at by an angry black woman. I turned down a cruise to Central America! Straight up backed out. My old friends have cut off complete contact with me, and oddly enough, I don't actually care. I have made so many new, real friends in the time since I last wrote, it's inconsequential. I have fallen in and out of love exactly three times, with two and a half people. I am out of shape. I have become the vice president of the PRSSA. I have tried transferring Target stores. (Jury's still out on that one) I am looking for other work opportunities. I now have a real-live Mohawk. (Mixed reviews on that one) I might be getting a new car today, I have been working diligently on my internship, with a bunch of incompetent fools. (I NEED a new one for the summer, preferably paid.) My eyes have stopped degrading. I came into a large sum of cash and promptly paid off most of my debts. I have begun to question myself and my motives, I've begun to see that I am special, to some degree. I am BRILLIANT. I am WITTY. I am WARM. (Another Gone Girl reference, I can't help myself, it's utterly haunting and phenomenal and stuck in my head.) I had a quiet nervous breakdown when I piled too much work onto myself. I'm fine now. I am calling into work Sunday in order to get drunk with my roommates at the St. Paddy's Day Parade. Who am I? My tastes have changed slightly, I like watching hockey and more stupid shows that the male population seem to like to watch without any plot line, or any effort put into the writing at all. I like bad Netflix movies. I like to sip a beer while watching these things. I am a man. I also finally know and understand what and who I want, and one of my lusts actually falls into the cliche of "been right in front of you the whole time." Fuck.

 I say I don't want to marry or have children but this is a lie. A cold painful lie. I want to be a good husband and father. I want the stupid dog, I want the white picket fence, I want to play catch with my kids. I want all that sappy shit. My shell has been cracked. I'm 255% more human than I have ever been and that scares the shit out of me. Drunk Zack (me) can attest to that. The me I am when I am drunk is vastly different from when I am sober. When sober I am cold, calculating, everything is my joke, the world is mine to laugh at. I think deeply before saying something. I think of every scenario and come up with back-up plans on the spot. I am a genius. When I am drunk or high,(I've been smoking lately again, weed and cigarettes.) I become weak. I can't stop words from rolling off of my tongue. I become a "hugger." I have allowed this trait to bleed into my actual life. I like being kind to people, I like human contact. I think depriving myself of it for so long has made me crave it all the more. I like both sides of me I decided, my friends agree. I'm pretty sure I know what direction my life is headed and I love that. There are some things I will not disclose on here, some things that must be kept to myself for the time being. I am a slut. In more ways then one. It is possible, you know. I will let you do what you will with that.

I have begun reading a new book every week. I am well-read. Who am I? You know, I continually bring up the theme of who I am, but the truth is I am me. I am Zack. I am finally happy. I am me. I am hungover and I am ecstatic. I am sure I've forgotten some things but these recollections will come back to me in time.

We'll talk soon.

Zack. (AKA John Doe)

Self-Image

Saturday January 3

Target was pretty dead tonight, it was a nice welcome in lieu of the chaos that was yesterday. There wasn't anything too out of the ordinary tonight. I mean of course apart from the occasional rambling crazy person about God only knows what, questioning my credibility, which in retrospect is actually pretty common. It's almost like some customers only want to start problems with me simply because I'm giving them the answer they don't want to hear so obviously I must not have any idea what I'm talking about right? Right. On the opposite side of that spectrum however, a kind Canadian man gave me some words of encouragement once he heard about my academic pursuits. He said: "You are very bright, for you to be able to handle all that you do, don't ever settle; your better than that." I didn't catch his name, but I won't forget his words anytime soon. 

The song of the night was one of my most favorite songs ever and so my ride home probably made it look like I was having an epileptic episode to other drivers. That song is.... ready for it? Sexyback by Justin Timberlake. Nobody will ever understand my love for that song; hell I don't even understand it. There was one other thing I was doing that might have been incurring the looks I was getting at the red lights. I was throwing one dollar bills around my car and dancing with them. Honestly, this is semi-embarrassing and I can't believe I'm writing this, except that I can because my level of shame is almost nonexistent but one of my big dreams in life is to be a stripper on a stage for just one night where they play all the good jams and I just have a good time in my underwear and women and men (if they're into that) throw singles at me. It's such a bad dream to even have but I really just want to see what it's like, but I definitely feel like I would start giggling uncontrollably in the middle of my routine.   

Which brings me to the big thought I have had all day today: I have to get into shape, and quickly. My mom told me a few days ago that we as a family are all going on a cruise in the beginning of May. The timing is perfect since I'll just be wrapping up the semester. The cruise is leaving from Orlando and going to Costa Maya, Mexico, Cozumel, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. So that gives me four solid months to turn my flab into abs. Challenge accepted. It's gonna be hard but hopefully I can stick to it, honestly I've had to tone up and get into shape for years and this cruise is the perfect incentive. Growing up, my weight was always an issue. It was an issue to the point that my childhood pediatrician who I will refer to by her first name Usha ( Pronounced Oooo-SHA) because it's fun to say, referred me to a nutritionist whom I never saw. Usha would tell me visit after visit that I had to switch my habits and that I was on the track for diabetes, and then one day I was about 250 pounds. At age 15. I was in XXL shirts and 40 waist pants. I had to have ultrasounds done on my heart and blood taken because my cholesterol was so high that it was effecting the way my heart was working. I was 15 and I was terrified. And so I decided to make a change at all costs. Being a young, stupid kid I took what I thought was the easy route: I started to starve myself, and run/walk on one of those Gazelle workout machines we had in the basement. It was the summer before my sophomore of high school by this point and I would sleep all day, wake up at night and work out on that stupid machine, and barely eat enough to get by. I would usually chew gum instead of eating.  So I started my sophomore year like this. At this point in my life I would often be made fun of for a number of reasons. Reason number one: there were always rumors circulating that I was gay because I never had a girlfriend. This was because of my extremely low self-esteem. Due to this I often questioned myself and it made my teenage years all the more confusing. I was made fun of because of my weight, and I was made fun of because of my race. I went to a predominately white high school so the kids were generally insensitive towards what I was. They would make little jokes about my skin color or say something about black people and then say "oh sorry! I forgot you were there,"'or "I forgot you were black!" I blame the parents. I mean I'm only half-black, but damn! There's a whole list of things I could write about what people said about or to me leading up to my junior year, but that is something for another day. Tangent over, sorry those happen extremely often. Where was I? Oh yeah, so I noticed that I wasn't losing or gaining anymore weight, I was stagnant. I realized that this was because of my extremely low level of physical activity. I lost the weight by playing sports for the first time in eight years when I joined the rugby team at age 17. I joined rugby specifically because it was a "tough sport" and slowly those nasty rumors started to die down and the reinvention of myself began. I've been steadily losing weight since, (aside from a brief stint in my freshman year of college where I was eating fast food daily as a result of acute depression; but again, different story for a different day.) and am now a size M shirt and a 32-33 waist in pants.  Now the time has come for me to tone that shit up.

If you're still with me, I really appreciate it. Somehow my basic notion of getting in shape became this tirade about days long past. It's just that people are constantly asking me how I lost the weight, well that's the ugly truth. I realized what I had to do, I went about the wrong way, then the right way for the wrong reasons, and ended up where I am now. There isn't a lesson to be learned here, nothing is that black-and-white, but this is the truth.

Sitting here now as today becomes tomorrow, I'm watching my little brother Eli play his video games and I see so much of myself in him it's surreal. He'll be seven in a couple of weeks and I hope he'll be one thousand times stronger than I was and I'll definitely be here for him to help him along the way.