Leaving Las Lincoln, Omaha, Poker Resumes Tomorrow

This is going to be shorter than I intended, but I actually accomplished a lot today and I have an interview in nine hours.

I'm glad I moved. I needed to move. I know that now because hindsight is 20/20. I really was in a funk for my final week or two in Lincoln because I wasn't sure about leaving. Nobody could have figured it out because I'm pretty good at cramming things down deep and putting on a smile, but I was torturing myself day in and day out. I don't know if I posted it on the blog, but there was a bout of insomnia that I had because of this. I would be exhausted, eyelids dropping like the final curtain at a play, and then the thought of moving would cymbal-crash its way into my head and I couldn't sleep. I think the earliest I went to bed was 6am during this period. I needed to move to grow up. I like most of who I am, but some things need to change. I'm 25. Time to stop living off of mommy and daddy and screwing around. I will still have plenty of fun and I'm sure I'll find ways to get myself into ridiculous predicaments because I can't seem to avoid them, but I was turning into the guy that I always made fun of. The 30 year old who still works some menial hourly job, boasting about his exploits and adventures while hanging out with 19 year olds. Scared. Afraid of diving into the world because there might be a shallow bottom. I realized this one night while we were drinking (shocker). Jeff said that I should move up to Omaha with him and the camera pulled back like I was in Men In Black. I needed to start over, and the first step was the symbolic gesture of actually moving and starting anew. I could've changed my ways in Lincoln, but it wouldn't have pushed me out of my comfort zone and I really needed somebody to tip my cage over. Water mixing with the food, shit falling off of my newspaper, the whole shebang. So here I am. I haven't closed the book on Lincoln yet; I really love that city. If I ever get ridiculously rich and famous, I'm going to show all of my rich and famous friends Lincoln. It will become the new haven because it really does have a lot to offer. Even if I don't become a tabloid superhero, I know that Lincoln is on down the road somewhere for me. I don't know when, but I get the same feeling that I do when I roll off of I-80 into Kearney. Hell, I was born in Lincoln. It's just as much home to me as Kearney. Even though both of those chapters are finished, a quick glance at the index will tell you that there is more to come. So I won't say goodbye to Lincoln, I'll say until next time.

My apartment smells like delicious. Not inside my apartment, although somebody did put up a Glade Plug-In in the hallway which gives off a pleasing odor, but outside, in the parking lot, it smells delicious. I haven't been able to pin down the smell, but it is some sort of baked good I think. It's fucking awesome. I'm starting to feel at home, although I really don't have any idea where I'm going when I leave my apartment. I have a rudimentary grasp on the cardinal directions, but I don't KNOW where I'm going, I just happen to get there. I know I need to go north and east, so I go north until I see something I know, and then I go east. I don't know that I'm going to take L to 680 to get up to Pacific, I'm just like a stumbling drunk who keeps taking the correct turns and somehow wakes up at home. Although tonight I started to feel connected to the city. I drove to the building that I have an interview in tomorrow so that I knew where it was. As I was driving with the windows down and listening to Someone (Thrillseekers Mix) by Ascension, I felt like I belonged. If you read Paul McGuire's blog, he just talked about this (August 28th post), which is sort of weird. I felt like I belonged right where I was at that very time. I sort of got this feeling my second night here. D'vo and I met up at Farrell's on 10th and Dodge to say goodbye to our friend Jake before he headed back to DC. It was about 5pm when we left Farrell's, and D'vo asked if I wanted to hang out at his place a few blocks away for a bit and then get dinner. We ate at the Upstream Brewing Company and had a few more beers. After that, we headed to a little place on the corner by his building and had a few drinks and a bottle of wine. We capped off the night by heading up to the rooftop deck and having a cigarette. It was really cool just bumming around downtown. It is the sort of thing that I hope to make a habit of. I've also made a habit of working out here. By habit, I mean I've gone two days in a row. I'm very sore. I'm going again tomorrow. I've come up with a little two day lifting routine, I'll do some sort of cardiovascular exercise five days, and I get weekends off. The new me will not be a fatass. I'm eating better, but it is really only a result of me being totally poor right now. Rice is only $1.89 a box for the good stuff, and you can get two meals out of it. Throw in a piece of chicken (three pound bag of frozen chicken breasts for $4) and you have a meal. Wash down with milk. I can eat that stuff for a week for like $10. It usually costs me $7 a trip to eat fast food. Ok, I've been typing this for nearly a half hour. Thank you for finishing this behemoth.