“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.”

My uncle, aunt and cousins are in town for a swim meet. I took them to a great Italian Market by my place today. They loved it and we had a great time and ate Gelato.

Before they came I cleaned my place top to bottom and was blown away by how it looked and how I felt afterward. My head feels clearer and i just like looking around my place and admiring the cleanness of it.

Im working listening to Pandora now. Ah. Simple things.

craigslist cat ad

its hard on me but i gotta do it.

http://austin.craigslist.org/pet/2862680125.html

Back from the event. My whole life was wrapped up in this thing over the weekend.

I did very well with coaching. Few people threw questions at me I didnt know. I impressed the company hosting the event. I watched some pretty masterful sales presentations. I've seen first-hand that the concepts work for people who take action so while a lot of this weekend was being in a "sales" environment I didnt feel like the speakers or my hosts were at all disingenuous. In fact the attendees were all super enthusiastic and complimentary about the whole experience.

I handed out a lot of business cards so maybe a few of those leads will turn into new clients. I need to follow up. I also got some new ideas Id like to try out, particularly selling ebooks on Amazon Kindle.

Socially it was also an interesting weekend. I met a lot of different people from 19 year old phenoms making more money per year than the average adult will their entire lives, husband and wife duos looking to start making money online, ridiculously hot opportunists looking for a man to bankroll them, outgoing speakers, weird introverts and everything in between.

My hosts paid for an evening out where they reserved a section of a fairly snooty bar. I had fun but the venue was not really my style. They did take us out for barbecue at the Salt Lick which is just crazy awesome barbecue.

Overall an exhausting weekend. 24 hours of my time (give or take). Hopefully the check will be sizeable enough to be worth it. The networking and ideas sparked alone was worth it, I just need to make sure to follow up.

Back to my normal life. Hopefully a little more inspired to take action and get closer to my goals and finish my to-do lists. On the list is finding a new home for this cat, hanging my guitars up on the wall for a nice form meets function wall art project, preparing for Panama next month, getting a new iphone I dropped over the weekend (cracked screen), disputing a parking ticket, cleaning this apt from top to bottom including shampooing the carpet, yada yada. Pulse-pounding living I tell ya.

I will be attending an internet marketing event Friday, Saturday and Sunday as a coach rather than a participant. There are 6 total coaches and we are going to end up dividing 8% of the gross sales among ourselves.

I have no clue what to expect with this event but its exciting. I am going to be treated as the professional I am and share what I know with other marketers. I will also be expected to close the sale and get the people I coach to sign up for the paid coaching sessions that the event is promoting. So that could be a challenge because I am not experienced in face to face selling.

I'm hoping the networking aspect of this event alone is worth the weekend. I have business cards printed up and will definitely talk up my personal services I offer. That's my real goal. Get my name out there more. Spread my income across more than just 2 clients.

In other news I have to stop drinking so much. I stayed home tonight and its the first night I haven't had alcohol in me in something like a week. I dont get wasted every night but a buzz every night cant be good for my health. I felt sluggish and slightly ill today and Im pretty sure that's the reason.

Drinking is such a common method of socializing in this town. Everyone does it. I need to get out the house, so I get out. Then I end up having a beer. Then a couple more. Its cutting years of my life off Im sure. Tie in my casual smoking and Im a complete idiot.

Last night was okay. I ended up at a dance club with a friend of mine I dated several years ago. She looked fantastic. We flirted, held hands and danced but our dynamic is very strange. Both of us don't seem to want to take it to where it used to be so we didn't even kiss or make plans to hang out again. I actually consider her a good friend. The mutual attraction pushes it just slightly over the friend level but not enough to act on it in a sexual way. Hard to explain.

She just got out of a breakup but for some reason was hanging out with the guy and his new girlfriend. On Valentines day no less. Blew my mind. Shes a very smart gal but apparently a masochist. She left the club upset which didn't surprise me. I convinced her to come get me and we went to a diner and hung out a bit more before calling it a night.

Now I prepare for the 3 day event. Gotta get in elbow brushing mode. Wish me luck.

V day

meh.

I have been seeing a gal for a short time. She informed me we have been on 9 dates so that is definitely more than my typical experience. Shes getting cooler as I hang with her. Still its too early to do any Valentines things with her and I honestly don't really like this holiday anyway. Its kinda silly to me.

But what it makes me think about is one of my biggest challenges that keeps me from just up and traveling to work in various parts of the world. One simple word. Loneliness.

Anaheim was hard at times. I spent so much time alone that I was dying to just hang out with someone. When I finally went on that date the last night, I was half crazy with boredom and loneliness. I think if I could rid myself of that emotion I would be able to have a much more interesting life. But so much of me cant function well without a familiar face to hang out with. Maybe I'm no different than most people but it would be nice to fully enjoy myself somewhere where I knew absolutely no one. At least quell it to a level that would allow me to be social without appearing weird or desperate. But I find it very challenging to not start feeling sorry for myself and that affects my interactions which perpetuates being alone. I pulled it off fine in Anaheim but there was a constant dull anxiety the entire time that I was actively battling. I bet with more experience I will get better at it.

Dennis the Lawyer

When I was a bartender I met some truly fascinating, tragic and sometimes awesome people. I really did get to peer into people's deeply personal lives and found myself constantly surprised at what lurks behind the people we meet every day.

Case in point... Dennis the Lawyer

Dennis was a late 40s, successful defense lawyer living in downtown Houston. Graying short hair. Very tan, short stocky Italian guy. He would talk to me and rarely make eye contact due to the fact that he was always looking around to see who was watching him. He tipped outrageously well so it was always nice to see him walk through the door.

As I had more conversations with him I began to get the feeling that this guy was a pretty morally grey type of person. Once I asked if he ever defended a client who he knew was guilty. He just smiled and said "Everyone deserves a fair trial".

He loved women which I could relate to. He would always have some sexual escapade he was telling me about. And though part of me deplored him, he would keep me glued to his stories.

Dennis: Have you ever fucked an Armenian girl?
Me: Nope can't say I have.
Dennis: Ah you are missing out. Last night I had the craziest sex with an Armenian and afterwards we just laid there with the windows opened, listening to the wind and the horses clip-clopping downtown.

This was in 2002 and he told me that Houston was the next New York as far as growth was concerned. He was right. It has since transformed into a Sprawl that I am glad to have escaped.

He would bring in strippers. Houston is a big stripper city. Tall ones, rough ones with tired faces, one I learned was a trust-fund baby. She appeared to be the moodiest and most miserable of the ones I met. One night, flanked by two women at the bar, I heard him tell someone over his cell phone that he would pay for the abortion. Ah Dennis.

My last memory of Dennis would not disappoint.

One night he came into the bar, ordered the same food he always did, tipped me huge and got up to leave. He then leaned over the bar, grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal and threw me a 50 and told me to shut up and quickly disappeared.

The bar had a camera that was rarely turned on but it was not worth keeping that 50 and losing my job if the camera miraculously started functioning so I told my manager the next day.

Dennis returned a few days later for a drink and his standard dinner and my manager approached him, told him what happened and explained the camera. Dennis winced as my manager made him pay for every shot in that bottle of Crown. Something like 6 bucks per shot. I'm guessing Dennis spent several hundred dollars for that bottle that day. I never saw him again.

look what showed up

My client sent this to me as a gift. It sounds as great as it looks.

I had a woman call me from some cancer research center wanting to speak to my father. She reached me by mistake. She had information regarding my half-brother who died back in 03. She asked if I would relay the message to him to contact her. I took her info and sat on it for a day. I didnt have his info so I started surfing. I found his facebook profile. I debated writing him with the info. It would be a breach of a 10 year silence. Was it important? The lady could only give me so much info due to hippa regulations.

Instead of contacting him I found a phone number with some searching and called the woman back with the info. I am not quite ready to open the lines of communication with my dad again. I explained this to her. She understood. Very weird situation. I wonder what it could be after all this time?