Way back when in high school, one of my oldest friends Aisha and I discovered horoscopes and star signs. We would spend hours in book stores as kids reading our daily horoscopes and peeking into the weeks ahead. We would read all about our star signs and look at all the different romantic combinations and what they meant to us. To this day, I’m still not sure what they mean or if they really do reveal secrets to a person’s personality, but for years I’ve noticed trends and some truths to what I’ve read.

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As long as I can remember, I’ve always been a pretty moody person. I like my routines and when those routines are disrupted, I can get cranky. I can also get pretty cranky if I don’t get enough sleep. I’m most definitely not a morning person. Every morning, I need a shower, coffee, something to eat, and a cigarette before I can even think about socializing with anyone else. When I get home from work, I’m pretty similar. I need some alone time to decompress, get something to eat, change out of work clothes, and then maybe I can start socializing.

Usually a disruption in these routines will make me cranky. Is this me being selfish or set in my ways? Where does come from? I can be pretty adaptable to any situation and can make things work. But the more I develop these routines, I like to keep them.

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I’d like to consider myself to be an optimistic person. I’ve always believed there is some sort of solution to every problem. And even when there is no apparent solution, the answer may be to accept the situation and move on. But, that in itself is the solution. It’s not always easy, but there really is an answer to everything. I’ve always made the effort to think things through and find an answer. I remember watching an episode of Mad Men recently and Don Draper says to Peggy Olson, “You’re not an artist… You solve problems”

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve never really been known to be confident and outgoing. It’s something that I’ve accepted about myself and something that I’ve always believed will never change. I’ve just gotten used to it so much that I don’t even notice the times when I am confident and outgoing. I’m definitely capable of it. I just don’t make the effort to try to be that way. In my mind, I will always be painfully shy and insecure.

Confidence is sexy. As much as I’m attracted to the shy nerdy type, I’ll have to admit that the arrogant jock type will make my head turn. Confidence often borderlines arrogance and maybe that’s why I end up dating or being attracted to so many assholes. It’s easy to confuse the two.

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Last night, my friend Amrit and I decided that beginning Monday, we are no longer going to allow ourselves to spend money in a bar or in a restaurant for drinks or food for 30 days. I’ve been going a little crazy with the amount of money I spend out and need to get myself back to living the lifestyle I had when I made much less money as a barista.

In those days, I was able to get by and pay my bills, feed myself, and still had cash to go out and drink with friends. So what’s different now? Why am I spending so much more money? It’s a ridiculous and true concept that you spend more when you make more. I know it’s possible to get by and still have a life on half of what I make. I just need to reconnect with those principles. I need to spend more time at home with friends, cooking food and hanging out. Sure, the bar and party scene is fun and I enjoy a nice meal out at a nice restaurant. But, I can’t afford to do this every night of the week or all weekend long, every weekend. There are a lot of cheaper and more affordable options of having a good time.

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I’ve been going through my old blog entries from years ago and have been amazed at how much I wrote back then. A part of me is nostalgic for those times, but the other part of me doesn’t recognize the voice I had. I seem like such a different person now and reading the entries sound like their coming out of someone else’s mouth or from someone else’s fingers.

I can’t believe some of the things I’ve written or how I’ve felt. I almost feel like that person also had a much more full life than mine. Or is it that person took the time to write it all down. For the most part, I wrote in code. I didn’t want to write out someone’s real name, so I gave them nicknames. There was one entry in particular where I referenced someone from an older post and talked about this person in great detail, but not enough detail for me to remember who this person was. I had feelings for this guy, yet today, I can’t remember who he is or what the circumstances were at the time that led me to write that post. It truly does feel like I’m reading someone else’s journal.

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I’ve decided that I want my second tattoo to be a sea turtle. I already have a crab with the cancer sign on my right shoulder and I thought it would be great to balance it out with another shelled sea creature on my left shoulder. I’ve always had an affinity with turtles and it seems to fit with my personality (hard shell on the outside, soft/sensitive inside.)

I designed it to be tribal-like with a heart in the middle. I’m pretty happy with the way it looks, but I need to clean up the design in the event that the tattoo artist is going to print it out and make a stencil out of it. It’s going to be similar in size to the one on my right upper arm so that the fins will wrap around my shoulder a bit, just like the crab claws do.

Tomorrow, I’m starting a 30-day sobriety experiment. Lately, I’ve noticed that I go out a lot and I’ve been drinking a lot. I figure I really need to take a break and take some time off. I would never want to go completely sober and quit drinking indefinitely. I just figure that I really need to get away from that lifestyle and take a few steps back and evaluate my life. I’m going to use these 30 days and really focus on working out and losing weight and get back into the routine I established before the whirl-wind of the holidays hit me.

Last summer, I started taking boxing lessons. I really wanted to learn how to get in shape and I thought the best way was to pick up a skill or to learn a martial art. I wanted to learn something and at the same time feel motivated to work out and get into shape. After a few lessons, I really liked my trainer and what I was learning. I liked what he was doing at the gym and I liked everyone I was meeting there. His gym is actually a barbershop/boxing gym and he cuts hair, which to me is a pretty awesome idea. (Check Michael the Boxer out at his website.)

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I’ve always thought skydiving was going to perpetually be on my list of “Things I Want To Do Before I Die.” But Love was set on going for her birthday last year, but then it rained. So this year, there was no question. The day was beautiful. We made our reservations. And we went.

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