I try to keep everything in my life balanced and since I’ve had several posts about things that are awesome and people that are awesome, I should maybe try list some things that are not awesome. Don’t worry, I won’t get too emo…

Things that I Miss in My Life

1) My dog.

That guy was unbelievably dumb in such an awesome way. There is no way I couldn’t smile and be happy around him. I’m fairly certain he would have played fetch in the water until he drowned. And even then, I bet he’d have died a happy dog doing what he loved.

The only solice I have is knowing that he’s not dead. I lost him in an ugly (but civil) break-up. But hey, I got a washer, dryer, and 2 fishing poles. That’s the same thing, right? Up the fuckin river, folks.

2) Hunting and Fishing any time I’d like

The great thing about growing up in Podunk, WI is the vast expanse of nothingness. There was literally *thousands* of acres of wooded land behind my parents’ house. If I didn’t feel like hunting, I’d walk down to the dock, hop in the boat, and go fishing. Sure, I still go hunting and fishing somewhat regularly, but now it involves 6 hours of driving and quite a bit of money. If any of you have friends in MN that have land and/or a boat, hook a brother up, yo!

This is from 2 years ago. I’m hoping for a similar outcome this year.

3) Having more than just a handful of friends within the city

The other thing about Podunk, WI is that the schools are normally K-12 all in one building. As a senior in high school, I knew 6th graders by their first names and pretty much knew everyone else in the school by their faces. My core group of friends were 3 years older than me (from when I was a freshman) through 3 years younger than me (the freshman when I was a senior). That’s quite a few people even for a tiny, tiny, unincorporated town.

Next up was college. Being on the football team guaranteed I had a minimum of 100 friends at any given time. Then, toss in the handful of engineers that I actually got along with plus friends of friends that eventually became friends, and again, I’ve got a huge pool of friends to hang out with and do sweet/stupid (in an awesome way) things with.

Post graduation. I moved to Waco, TX with my ex (the one that has my dog) within a month of graduating college. Neither of us knew a soul down there, and Waco isn’t exactly a friendly place. Sure, we eventually met nice people, but due to daily violence on the news and witnessing several people on several occassions get arrested in a “nice” bar for brandishing weapons, it made you think twice about approaching random strangers. We ended up with a couple of friends that were also our respective co-workers and similar in age. That’s it.

Now, if you count my friends that are within a 30 minute drive (which is still a long drive if you just wanna hang out and watch some football), I think I’m down to 7. Of those 7, I think I’d count 2 as “real, true” friends like I had in high school. (Not surprising, 1 of those 2 is a friend from high school). Now, if you expand that radius to a 45 min. drive, I pick up a handful more that are still living in the great state of WI. All of my college buddies moved back to their respective areas, which are primarily Madison and Milwaukee. 5-6 hour drives (one way) is a long way for one night of boozing and reminiscing.

So, I guess I should be happy about having 7 friends. A lot of people have less. But if you compare the handful of friends I have now compared to the 200 I was used to having, it’s a bit of a change.

That’s a lot of friends!

4) Football.

You can probably guess, since I just got done ranting about it (and posting the picture), I miss the brotherhood. I miss getting goosebumps on gameday. I miss big hits. I miss the elation of a victory. I miss the heartache of a tough loss. I miss concussions. I miss bruises all over my body. I miss bitching about 6:00am meetings, 7:00am lifting, and having to get to the locker room 2 hours before practice and leaving 1.5 hours after.

I also miss training for a purpose. I lift now so that I can hold on to my athleticism, look good naked, and separate myself from all the other bro-dudes in the world. I compete in some strength sports, but it’s not the same. When I compete in those, I basically just show up to see how well I do. I don’t show up to win. Competing and not caring about the outcome is like faking an orgasm: lots of heavy breathing and grunting, but an extremely anticlimactic finish.

I absolutely loved working out in the gym to get better at a sport. I really do not like working out in the gym to get better at working out in the gym. But yeah, I’ll still be in there.

I’m sure I have more emo in me somewhere, but this is the minimal effective amount I can tolerate without a negative state change. Bye E!!

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