That's probably what I should change the title to, since it's the only time I ever seem to find to blog.  Today's lunch is brought you by the letter "P" for pesto chicken and potatoes.

If you don't know it already, I have a Twitter account.  I can't say I'm the tweeting type, or the kind of person that Twitter was designed for... but that won't stop me from trying to use it.  You can find me here.  I would add a button on here, but it messes with some of the design layout and look ugly because of my custom CSS settings (I really wish I knew more about webdesign).  I'll figure it out eventually or just be mysterious and keep my tweets a secret.

Also, BlogLovin' has got this as well.  So feel free to connect there (or here).

There's a part of being married that sees this inevitable problem come to fruition.  With her, this happens quite a bit.


This past weekend we did a mini-vacation (or as I will start to call them, "minications"), where we went down to Sea World San Diego and generally just got away.  This wasn't something I wanted to do, and I'm not even sure its something I would've planned to do had it all been up to me.  I'm normally fine just staying at home being productive watching TV or playing video games or fulfilling my weekly quota of laziness (I'm a licensed procrastinator after all).  The last thing I would want to do is do a bunch of things all weekend, including walking around a parking lot, walking around a theme park, finding a crummy hotel to not stay in (don't ask, long story), finding a better hotel, returning to said theme park and parking lot the next day, spending time getting reacquainted with traffic and California freeways, and spend my last day before returning to work schmoozing with extended family and going to church.

Had I planned my Easter weekend, it would've been much much different... and I would've hated it.


That's the funny thing about being married, especially with such a complementary spouse.  She says good things about me all the time has this nasty habit of bringing out the better in me, which always seems to happen particularly at times where I'd rather she didn't.  I didn't want to go away for the weekend, but I did.  All those things I thought I wouldn't like, I accepted and they became some of the better moments of my life (okay, maybe not the freeway traffic).

Spending a day at Sea World?  Fun!
Finding a better hotel in a nicer area with a better view and better food options and better customer service and better things?  Awesome!
Having a good Easter at church and then with family?  Great time!
Getting to do all of this, and more, with her?  Incredible!

I used to be this ho-hum, stick in the mud, stay at home, do nothing exciting (except beating a video game boss at midnight), boring kind of guy.  In many ways, a part of me still is (just ask her).  But now I find that all these things I thought I really didn't want to do, I now want to do.  I'm not talking about saying "I want to do them" just to get her off my back, but a legitimate, genuine, excited, ecstatic, and even anxious emotion of desire.


No more do I find myself protesting the slightest change in plans, possible afternoon whim, or otherwise suggested occasion with a disappointed gaze or interjected "but" (my butt is large enough already).  Instead of being a crab apple, I just accept it and go along for the ride.  Sure, after a long day's work, I can probably think of something better to do with my time (like relaxing), rather than going out with friends or driving across town to get a pizookie.

But the secret is...  I can't.
These are now all the things I want to do.

For as long as I can remember, I've always had this nagging desire to be successful.  Be it penning a novel, publishing a board game, developing a video game, or managing a popular internet site, I have a craving for success.  In what medium is largely irrelevant.  It is the recognition that comes with success which is most palatable.


I'm not sure where this urge came from, if some byproduct of my birth.  I was an under achiever in high school, not applying myself as one normally should.  In this regard, my parents often chided me for not living up to my potential or making the most of my abilities.  I could care less what they thought, but that word would linger in my deeper recesses.  Potential.  It wasn't until I graduated from college after five years and ended up with a job that required little more than a high school diploma, that its utterance returned to my ears.

What is potential?  Or more specifically, what is my potential?  There are many sleepless nights where I wish I could return to the day I was born and read the instruction manual or look at the back of the packaging to find out what my "potential" is or would be.  How do I know when I'm "living up" to it?  Will doing so make me feel "successful"?  These philosophical drippings continue to drizzle my windshield, and I am left with little but the cloth rag of "let's not think about it" to clear the road ahead.  It is so disappointing to feel disappointing, particularly in regards to her.

Green is my favorite color, perhaps not surprisingly so by how often I turn to its shades when hearing speak of others' successes.  Thankfully, I'm young enough that I'll live long after this quarter-life crisis, though in what form has yet to be perceived.

Irony is no stranger to me.  One of my pocketed ideas yet to be unveiled was the idea to start a webcomic.  The irony in my ineffective art skills, but I considered good writing to more than make up for it (there are quite a few comics floating around that make use of minimal art capabilities so perhaps I have a shot).  I even did the leg work to set up the server space, and I mapped out and designed the marketing logo and everything.  In a given window of time, I can imagine almost anything.


The problem was never if I could do it.  Certainly, I had led myself to believe that was the problem.  I'd dawdle over the art direction, vacillate about whether my abilities were up to snuff, and generally straddle the fence.  You see, the real problem was actually doing it.

Like too many of my pet projects (you'd claim I was a practicing necromancer with my inability to let old ideas go), I would doubt the execution.  I would doubt the effectiveness.  I would doubt... me.  One of my greater flaws is the hardship I have in doing things "just for me."  Largely, I think that phrase doesn't even exist in my mental database.  I would never start a webcomic and keep it going "just for me."  Clearly, I'd need to know if I have an audience, what my audience is looking for, if my pseudo-philosophical, poorly-drawn, metaphoric, mental soliloquy of a comic is even properly formed enough to be understood by someone who doesn't live within the confines of my skeletal cranium, and all other manner of seemingly-important-yet-probably-mostly-insignificant-to-a-start-up-project kind of things.

And to think that with this idea, I sold myself on the idea of just that.  Doing it just for myself.  I even made an unspoken vow to just put up at least one image every day for a whole year, just to prove I could commit to a project.  Since my previously expanded upon and set up web host has suspended my account due to inactivity, I think you can easily deduce how "successful" I was in that particular field of development.


Still, in the deeper regions of my self-inflated ego, I occasionally return to these less-than-attempted ideas pondering how magnificent they could've been.  Yes, there are times where I will readily admit a bad idea when I can find one, but it's especially less rewarding to find yourself patting yourself on the back for not doing a given thing.  Or at least it feels like such to me.

Who knows, perhaps one day these things will see the light.  I did just renew my database for another two more years.

While I may at often times wear different hats, I sometimes find myself unfortunate to wear different moods.  Beneath my stoicism, it may be hard to discern.  It's a lesson painfully born by her, but others may have felt the soft tremblings of disquiet self proportions.

I'd like to think that any amount of self-reflection, or self-understanding, would make any future dispositions totally within my realm of self-control.  But whether it is these images of shattered self that slip through wooden cracks while I find myself amidst my inner realm or some other means breaking through my emotional seams, I have yet to concoct a cure.

Perhaps that's why I'm so capable at juggling so many, varied ideas of whimsical things from card games to board games to tabletop games.  Or perhaps it's merely a vague idea flaunted as an excuse for self-excession.


While the greater efforts of my blogging at large are purely self-referential, I do aspire to attempt a more regular routine of posting.  Once I find an acceptable mobile platform on which to keep up my activities, there should be less rests.

One of my many secret identities is a bit greener than I'd like to admit.

Where men are excelling and women are achieving, look out below.  When accomplishments are recorded and successes are garnered, never fear... the Green Monster is here!  Lurking behind every blogger, hiding behind your Facebook page, and peering over your garden fence.  No achievement is too small to be envied!  No award is too insignificant to be desired!


Sure, he may not have a bat-signal, but there's emerald in his eyes.  If you'd ask her, she might feign ignorance about my lesser, masked villain hero's existence.  Unfortunately, his presence is insured when the grass is looking green.

The dreaded "J" word does linger incessantly over me.  And while I'd rather be writing about some infernal Jell-o addiction, I must admit I'm blogging about the eight-letter variety (no it's not jaundice).  Jealousy.