Happy Fun Cog

First of all, as for the title of this post, I have no idea if that's how you spell that word.

There are a lot of things going on and while I've been meaning to sit down and write on this here blog, I keep finding other things to do. Sometimes, such a thing is honestly just a matter of timing and/or energy. But other times, it's a red flag that indicates activity in a certain part of my psychological makeup, the desire/need to not think about certain things in order to maintain some kind of status quo.

I'm writing this from work, but one of the things that I'm trying to focus on right now is actually doing work at work and not just fucking around, so I'm going to just throw some short stuff out here.

1. I always misspell the word "sandwich." Always.
2. I've been ruminating for several months about getting back into martial arts instead of paying $45 a month to a gym that I never go to (I fucking hate the stationary bike) and apparently has a rule that the front desk can only be manned by girls with dyed blonde hair and dent-proof makeup. When I actually went and looked into the marital arts options available in my new town, I found a branch of the school I used to go to when I lived in Cambridge. I've got a pit of paranoia that they're not going to welcome me back, but they still have the most available class time of any of the dojangs around here, so I'm going to check it out.
3. I stopped taking Ritalin. This is a big, big thing for me. I've been taking Ritalin daily since I was 19, and it played a big role in my college life (going from shitty high school grades to graduating magna cum laude from an excellent college). But I've come to believe that I can get by without it. First and foremost, I believe that Ritalin was contributing greatly towards my constant anxiety; I don't think it was the source, but it sure as hell was making it worse. Plus, my shrink (and this is a rough summary) said there are two kinds of ADD - physical and psychological. Supposedly, I have the psychological kind, and I now feel like I have the mental and emotional tools necessary to get by without the pills.
   
4. I want to be in a relationship. I'm ready to be in relationship. For too long, I've defined these feelings as just wanting sex, and so it all got tied into my inherent dislike of casual sex (I'm just learning this about myself; I'm more... moral than I have long believed). But I was so caught up in my own illusions and my own need to say and feel bad things about myself that I completely missed the true nature of the problem - that I just haven't been ready for a relationship. I've still got a lot of things to think about, but now I'm starting to understand that it wasn't just a matter of me being socially stupid or inherently self-destructive, but rather a matter of me understanding on a deep level that I just wasn't ready to be emotionally intimate with someone. But I think I am now. I'm ready.

I've got a lot of things to figure out about my future, in terms of job, money, what I want to be when I grow up, etc. But now, more than ever, I feel ready for it. I feel ready to start moving onward and upward. Godspeed, Jack.