I've been feeling pretty good about myself lately -- emotionally, mentally, and physically.

My no-stress project is going along wonderfully. I've tried really hard to stop sweating the small stuff, and this will sound awful, but my secret to success in this area is not caring. If someone doesn't want to talk to me or see me, why should I care? I figured it out late last week. This has been easier said than done, but I'm doing a really good job. I've had the occasional stomach knots, but I've kept them to myself, thought the situations out, and made myself just not give a shit. The way I see it, there are going to be people in my life who want to spend time with me, and connect emotionally with me, and I'm going to have these awesome relationships without me feeling like I have to force myself on people. The people who have drifted or are drifting just aren't worth me trying to hang on to. If I end up with a bunch of fair weather friends, so be it.

I'm going to get over this insecurity of not being wanted. I hung with a group last weekend, and it was kind of awkward having lunch with them because they were all making plans for the summer around me, without including me, and it was like I was watching this elite group I can't be part of. I felt like an outsider. I just thought to myself, these people have been friends for years and years, and it's not me... I'm just new. As long as they keep planning things without me, I'll always be new. That made my not caring thing kicked in. Why should I care if these people want me around? It's not something I can control, so why sweat it? I'd like to fit in, and I put myself out there and try to talk to people, but if I don't fit in in the end, it's them not including me, not me holding myself back, and it's not like I don't have friends of my own. I just wanted to make more... It's hard being the new guy, and an outsider, and I don't normally put myself in situations like that for that reason. I'm proud of myself for how I was able to calm my insecurities myself. Stressing over shit like that just isn't worth it.

Work has been going great even though I've hard more time off than normal. This week I have over time, so it'll make up for the light week last week. I've been reading, and I've really been thinking a lot about picking my writing back up. To focus on my writing was one of the reasons I left GameStop. I've been kind of just living life and getting used to my new job. I move later this month, and I think after that I'm going to really make an effort to start writing regularly. It's what I want to do with my life.

I've been working out since January. I think this is the longest I've kept it up. My secret now is no weights. Having to go to the gym became a chore in the past, so this time I decided to try to pick up a work-out regimen I could do from home. I own an Iron Gym, which is basically just a bar I can hang from the door to do pull-ups. It has handles on it I can hold to do perfect push-ups. I also put the bar in the door to hold my feet in place for sit-ups. My work out is generally one of the following: 1) 25 push-ups, 35 sit-ups, 20 push-ups, 2) 10 pull-ups, 50 sit-ups, 5 pull-ups, or 3) 25 push-ups, 10 pull-ups. I run as well, but I don't have a schedule for it and just do it when I feel like it and have time for it. I'm starting to look really good, if I can say so myself.



I'm feeling more confident, more energetic, and just healthier.

I've considered going to the gym and starting weights, but I think I'm looking pretty good without the weights, and I know the weights will just burn me out. I want to look toned and show a little muscle under my shirt. I don't want to be huge like a body builder.

You know, I'm not sure how I feel about Astrology. I'm a Christian, so I'd like to say I don't believe in it, but I am eerily a Pisces at heart. I'm imaginative, I'm sensitive, I'm compassionate, I'm idealistic, and I'm emotional. I give more of myself than people give me back.

Look at these problems Pisceans often have:

A strong sense of despair not shared by family and friends, thus leaving you with that all alone feeling.

Causing others to be quarrelsome or to walk out on you all together.

Freaky. I should stop reading this shit, lol.

One of my friends gave me some great advice this week. She said I should stop putting effort into relationships where that effort isn't returned. It's so simple, and it makes so much sense.

I'm not upset or anything right now, by the way. I just was feeling contemplative and wanted to write (read: think) this out.

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day Weekend! I've been relaxing today. Played a whole bunch of Donkey Kong Country Returns, and slept. I've actually slept a lot. I need to quit being lazy and go do something. lol

I started back at the Augusta Dillons today. That was the store I was the Kompass rep for three years ago. For the most part, returning was pretty good. There was this guy named David who is about my age and ahead of the Produce Department there. He left Dillons for some time and just returned himself. He told me he is happy I am back, which felt awesome. There is another guy named Brandon who is about my age too, who works there. He remembered me as well and smiled when I walked in the door. Brandon actually seems really awesome. I remember liking him the last time I was there, but I was too shy to initiate anything other than work conversation at the time. I'll have to remedy that this time.

Kathy, who is apparently Bitch #1 at Dillons to most people, was a sweetheart to me like she always has been. She didn't like a number of Kompass reps that were sent to that store (who all ultimately did not work out as a result) but was happy to see me and expressed how happy she is to finally have a good Kompass person again. I try to go above and beyond for stores to make their sections look perfect, because I want to make them look good, which makes me look good, and strengthens my relationship with them. Today, I changed every single shelf strip on the bread aisle, which was a pain in the ass -- a point my coworker made abundantly clear ALL DAY -- but several people commented on how much better the aisle looks, and Kathy said it's evident I care.

The new store manager was really the only negative part of my whole day. The store is between department heads for some reason, so I had to get him to check off my sets and help me with locating items I needed, and assisting with problems that arose, and he made it seem like it was the biggest annoyance to have to stop and help me. I'm sure it was, but damn, there was no one else, and he wouldn't let any of his sales associates sign off on anything. At one point he said jokingly, "So this is how it's going to be, huh, Todd?" when I had to get him to print a planogram for me... I told him when he gets department heads, I'll bother them instead. Still, I'm aggravated that he was annoyed.

Work is still amazing. My boss approved me for overtime this week, which I'll end up having to use to get two stores* done this week. I definitely could use the Overtime hours after my shitty hours last week.

*A Kompass rep is out with cancer, and I'm covering her store as well as mine until she gets back.

The Game Stopped!

More later.

TMI: I have to take a drug test today. I've taken them before, and I always hate them. I'm pee shy. That means I can't pee when I know someone else is in the room with me. I'm not sure how I got this condition. It's just something I have always had. Public restrooms are nightmares for me. I can use some, but it has to be almost empty, and stalls have to be available. Anyway, I have to pee in a cup, with no water running, and no flushing the toilet after, knowing a woman (or I guess they could give me a man this time) is standing outside the door waiting to collect this disgusting sample. I'm going to have trouble going, and when I finally am able to go, I'm going to have to go too much, which means I'll have to use the toilet I can't flush, and someone will have to inspect it later.

It's so weird because I have no problem being naked in front of others (a doctor or otherwise), or even having sex for that matter, but I have a problem peeing in front of people. I'll get through it like I always do, but it's nerve wracking. My plan is to drink a lot of water in about an hour, and go at 3:00 when I know I'll have to pee, and then I won't care who is listening or watching. That plan only backfired on me once when they couldn't take me right away, and I had to wait in the lobby, having to pee really badly.

I have two more days of vacation after today, and I'm dreading going back. I think that I'm spending my vacation thinking about how much time I have left before I have to go back to work, and how much I really, really don't want to go back is evidence I am ready to move on. I am putting my notice in when I get back Friday, and will work two more weeks. Acosta has me starting online training and orientation on the 8th, when I'll still be working my notice, and starting in stores on the 15th, after my notice. They have been really cool about my needs in this transition.

I'm nervous about giving the notice, too. I think I'm just going to say my heart is no longer in this, and when I can't give 100% of myself, I need to move on cause it's the right thing to do. I will draft a letter to send to my DM and Human Resources on my last day with all of the issues I had, and things I think they should improve on to better working conditions for their employees. I don't plan to get into those things during my last two weeks of work because that would be uncomfortable for me, and they may decide to cut me before I'm ready to go (which is not a terribly bad thing, as Acosta wants to start me ASAP and are just holding off for me).

Number 8 in my Final Fantasy theme countdown is...

( From my favorite game... )

Speaking of which, who is excited for the PS Vita/PS3 remake?! I hear they are including FFX-2 in the package now.

I'm officially on vacation. Have been since Thursday, actually. Thursday, Shane and I went with our friends Jane and Christie to Nebraska to see a Final Fantasy concert. Christie is in the picture above with me. It was as I put on Twitter, "Oh my God, where did my balls go?" cold in Nebraska, but the concert was amazing. It was Nobuo Uematsu's birthday, so we got to sing Happy Birthday to him, and the orchestra played Uematsu's favorite Final Fantasy song, Unrequited Love from Final Fantasy IX, for the first time live for us. I just have no words.

They of course played my favorite song, too. Some of you who know me probably know what it is, but I want to have some fun with this. In my next ten entries, I am going to do a countdown of my absolute favorite Final Fantasy pieces. I'll let you know what my favorite piece is last.

So, without further adieu, Number 10 is:

( Suspense.  )

My birthday was awesome. Shane got me the cake above and this. It was a Tidus birthday. ;)

Hibachi was excellent. It was good seeing Jane, cause she was in Australia for the past two weeks and just got back. Zach and Barbara were good company, too. I had a great birthday dinner.

Barbara and Zach got me a $25 Amazon gift card. Jane got me a $25 GameStop gift card that I used to buy another $25 Amazon gift card, haha. My friend Scott got me the next three issues of The Walking Dead series I needed. I went ahead and bought the rest of the series with my Amazon gift cards. Now I own up to Volume 17. I stopped at 6 because they were too expensive to keep going til next payday. The series is so good but so expensive! I'm happy I don't have to worry about that now. The series is still ongoing, but Volume 18 isn't out yet, and now that I'm caught up, buying one a time as they release won't be so bad.

My mom sent me a $100 money order for late Christmas/early birthday. I bought a keyboard and case for my Kindle Fire with some of it. I can use that case to stand the Kindle up with the keyboard so it looks and feels like a laptop. I downloaded My Writing Spot (check it out here), a cheap novel-writing app that I'm going to use for Nanowrimo this year. I'd like to use it to start writing a novel before November, but my work life needs to calm down first. My Writing Spot uses a cloud storage system and comes with a free PC version, so I can write from my Kindle Fire or my PC, and pick up where I left off no matter where I was writing. I really like how the app looks and feels; I particularly like how I can divide my novel by chapter, and it tells me the word count of each chapter.

Shane and I went to JC Penny yesterday and spent the rest of my mom's money order on clothes. I bought a red button-down shirt, and three polos - black, navy, and red. It took everything in me to not go to American Eagle instead, but JC Penny has some pretty nice stuff, and I was able to get more for my money. I think I'm growing up, haha.

I Tumbl now! ...somewhat. Feel free to follow me:

t0dd.tumblr.com

Link me your Tumblrs, too, and I'll follow them.

We had another snow day today. Starbucks, AT&T, and my store all decided to close together since we share a shopping center, so my employees got to leave at 5:00. The blizzard conditions started accelerating at 7:00, so it was a good move. I at least didn't have to worry about people getting home.

The blizzard is supposed to continue through the night, so I'm worried about tomorrow. I close, and the roads may be better by the time I'm supposed to go in at 2:00. That could just be wishful thinking, though.

Today sucked. Yesterday, this started happening:



Last night, it got a lot worse. The snow is up to my knees. I was off today, so I was looking forward to enjoying it. Work prevented that from happening, though. My assistant manager and senior game adviser called out today because of the snow, so no one opened my store. I got calls and texts all day about my store not opening, and I got a lot of pressure to go in.

There's something about me GameStop needs to realize: I am scared to death of driving in snow. I'm from South Carolina where it almost never snowed, and when it did, the entire town shut down. Here in Kansas, life seems to go on no matter what. I wasn't able to get my car free, and even if I was able to, I'm not sure I would have made it. I got text after text though. It was annoying as hell. Today was my day off. I spent the day stressing out about work.

I took H Squared out in the snow. Helo loved it and threw himself around in it. Huck absolutely hates it. He won't even walk in it. I have to carry him outside and place him in a patch of grass just for him to go potty.

In other news, The Walking Dead is freakin fantastic. I read two more volumes today. I'll probably start Volume 4 tonight. This series is going to break me.

Tomorrow there is a Sony announcement. I'm excited and nervous. I'm pretty sure they will announce the Playstation 4, which is awesome, but there are rumored things I don't like. For example, it's floating around that the next gen systems won't play used games. There is a lot of buzz about this from customers at work because my store sells used games, but I'm not worried about it from a work standpoint; I know we'll adapt if that ever happens. Why it bothers me is I really like Sony and don't want to see them fail. I think they would be shooting themselves in the foot by making their next gen console play new games only.

Think about what this would mean. You couldn't take a game you bought to a friend's house to play. You couldn't lend out any of your games. You couldn't give old games away. This severely limits consumers, and I don't think people will like it. I sure won't.

I hope they finally give a release date for the Final Fantasy X revamp they are working on. They got me excited almost two years ago when they first announced they were making a remake, and then there's been little talk of it since. The other day, they announced news was coming regarding it. Please let that news come tomorrow.

Nintendo had a press conference pretty recently and announced some exciting things. Games I'm most excited about now:

• Donkey Kong Country Returns for 3DS
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf for 3DS
• Legend of Zelda: Windwaker remake for Wii U
• Pokemon X/Y for 3DS
• Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon for 3DS
• Project X Zone for 3DS
• Mario and Luigi: Dream Team for 3DS
• Rayman Legends for Wii U

These games need to come out already.