I asked her how she does her site designs, and she admitted that she relies on prebuilt themes and does no design work. Fair enough. It looks to me like I’ll have to take a base theme and modify it to my likings, meaning I’ll have to get a little greasy with PHP and CSS. Eh, it’s inevitable, really.

When she showed up, I was actually in preparation to leave for home, so I offered her my table so she wouldn’t have to share one with someone else. I considered the option of staying around to chat but declined it, mostly because I needed dinner, and partly because she needed to actually work on a presentation. Packed up my stuff, we had a few parting words, and I left.

I could’ve asked for her number, or at least her last name so I could find her on Facebook, but didn’t. I just don’t feel right doing that, y’know? Maybe it’s creepy. Certainly feels that way. So, what’s the damn protocol, ladies? First introductions? Third encounter? Moments before she mentions her boyfriend?

And so begins a new day, a new month, new year, a new decade. I feel hopeful for my future…kinda like I always do at this time of year. But I hope some of my lost potential can be regained. I’m sitting at this coffeeshop at my laptop, and I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to life than this. I was up here last night doing the same thing, and 4 hours before the stroke of midnight I had a look around and noticed that the place was half-filled with a scattering of sad fucks at their laptops on a party night. It was then that I knew I didn’t want to be one of them. So I got up and left. Found a party.

There’s more to life, and sitting on my browser, hitting refresh constantly on Facebook, is not what I’d consider living fully. There are songs to be written. There are loves to be won. And that won’t happen here like this.

You: rambling on about your stupid E-cigarettes to anybody and everybody you can. The way you rave about them leads me to believe one of two scenarios: 1) you are so hungry for someone to validate your lifestyle, or 2) you are on the e-cigarette vendor’s payroll. Sure, you’re not burning anything and stinking up the airspace, but it’s still an addiction.

I’m in a crisis, folks. I don’t know what to do with myself. Tonight’s restlessness is but a symptom of a growing problem I’m facing with the concept that, at age 35, I’m wasting my life on useless, wandering, meandering pursuits that will neither benefit me nor mankind in the least. I’m wasting my time. Is that what life’s all about, or is there more? I mean, I leave work, find a fast food place to eat, and then either go home and mope (and do nothing productive) or I go to a coffeeshop and sit there, laptop open, mouth agape, mind blank, and do nothing productive. It’s like Where do I begin? I have so much stuff that I want to do. So much I want to say, to share, to experience and I do nothing about it. Just hold it in. I’m currently, physically, dealing with a case of diarrhea, but I feel that it’s my life that needs to take a shit.

I’m giving in to that part of my instinct that’s a scared little animal. I’m afraid to express. Fuck sakes, it takes me 5 minutes to gather my volition to write an email to my manager at work. It takes half an hour to decide on calling someone. Shit, it’s been years since I asked anyone out (it failed, naturally). So what the hell? If I were a bird whose species relied on crowding onto a rocky cliff face to build a nest, I would have no offspring because I don’t want to play the game. I don’t want to fight for my piece of dirt. I enjoy crowds when I can sail through them anonymously, but when something’s at stake — my life, my property, my status — I want nothing of it. I’d rather starve and let those animals fight like dogs over their precious piece of meat. In a large enough population, this behavior would be more apparent. Maybe that loner nature is necessary to cause me to seek resources elsewhere. I don’t know; there are 12 answers, and they’re all correct. I’m such a fool.

So I discovered something a few weeks ago. For the past few months, my knees have been popping every time I climb the stairs to my apartment or step up onto something. This is the same thing they did the last time I rode my bicycle – every step on the pedal would cause a knee (at that time, my left) to pop loudly; the next few days, I was sore.

Well, so here’s my knees doing the popping thing. A few weeks ago, I went to Eeyore’s Birthday down at Pease Park; the whole day was spent just kinda drifting and walking lazily, sitting for a while, walking some more, meeting friends, people-watching, walking some more. Typical Eeyore’s stuff.

Two days later, after a little soreness, I came home from work and ascended the stairs to my apartment — no popping. I stopped halfway up and tried to figure if I was going deaf. No deafness. I stepped. Nothing. Went the rest of the way up. Nothing. And it was then that I learned something: the popping goes away with exercise, something I’ve known, but it’s now brought home to me. Walking will lubricate cartilage, make it supple, and remove any little spurs on the bone ends.

Consider me schooled.