Like Jerry Springer is to many people, the Real World is my guilty pleasure.  I watched those two episodes, the latest ones, on the heels of taping 7 1/2 hours of it for Paula (poor girl, she doesn't get MTV up in her neck of the woods).  But anyhow, the two episodes I watched tonite have Ruthie, the alky fucked-up Hawaiian girlie, being confronted by her roomies about her drinking.  They tell her to either go and get into rehab and come back in 30 days, or to get out.  (Why is 30 days such a magic number for rehab?  Maybe 34 days would be much more helpful).  After a little thinking, I got a little upset.  The roomies are trying to force her hand and essentially blackmail her into an action.  It's the "tough love" approach, which has never been one of my favorite approaches, being the warm and sensitive guy that I am.  The other roommates are trying to control her life even more than the producers of the show are.  But hey, it's compelling TV.  MTV, to its credit, does make interesting, even "provocative" shows (ick, I feel like an old fart for saying "provocative".  Kids don't say "provocative".  They say "cool".  So hard keeping up with the young people...)

Then I realized that they are all idiots after I turned on ABC and saw four of them on Politically Incorrect.  Then I felt like a bigger idiot for caring about their problems in the first place.  The one dumb ho, "Amaya" goes on about how she's not an idiot because she graduated from UCLA two quarters early, and she "got good grades".  This is the same chick who whines and cries because she got involved with a 19-year old on the show.  Whatever, I graduated from UCLA with "good grades" (albeit 5 quarters late), and nowhere on my diploma does it say I'm smart because of it.  I checked.

Then I turned on IFC and saw a teenage lesbian love story, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love.    It was much more enjoyable than either the Real World or Politically Incorrect, and I didn't feel like an idiot after watching it. 

But anyhow, realizing that I felt like an idiot in front of...myself won't take away from the thinking that I did tonite.

Talk is cheap, and anybody who reads this knows me from my words, not my actions.  Whatever promises I make here don't mean shit, because I can promise anything and I don't have to do it. 

I'm still small time in my thinking.  Yeah, I'll get a job, and yeah, I gotta pay people back funds (a lil' more on that later), but little else will probably change -- I'll get on with being the same ole' Haole I've come to hate over the years.

But that's not good enough anymore.  Well, it was never really good enough, although Paula might argue otherwise.  But I know the truth, and other people know it.  Like I what I just wrote in the previous entry about other people in my life as the only thing keeping me going.  The probs with Jenny, fair or unfair, are a reflection of a bigger picture -- my actions, or inactions, have gotten me on a very tight rope with a lot of people who are close to me.  I also realized all by myself (I'm so smart!) that by getting fired and declining back into this embarrassment of modern existence, I was allowing the shlubs who fired me to get their way.  And that was one thing that I didn't want to allow to happen, was to let them win.  (OK, so by my sly use of italics I'm making them out to be villains.  Shut up, I'm on a roll).  All the encouragement and "when one door closes, another one opens" metaphors were going to waste on me.

When I was in my first semester of high school, I was flunking a couple of classes and not doing well in any of the rest through the first few months of the year.  They sent one of those notices home, and my parents got it around Christmas time.  They were pissed.  I was grounded until May, and told to get my grades up, way up, no matter what.  So I did.  I had some help, but I did.  I didn't rebel (that came later), and I didn't really have any friends so being grounded didn't exactly kill my social life, since I was already on life support, but  I did manage to finish out the semester strong and then did well the second semester.  I did well ever since until the 2nd quarter of my fifth year, and then the roof came in.

That was a sudden transition, but it reminded me that I have the capacity to get my shit correct.  I lost 40 pounds in three months two years ago.  I lost 50 pounds in six months in 11th grade.  Granted, these are quite different tasks than what is before me now, but I do have willpower.  Plus, I found a fantastic woman in the form of Paula.  So I can do incredibly great things.

Maybe I'm writing this during a particularly high serotonin level point, but I figure that getting all my shit up here will give me a little extra incentive to get with things.  I was actually doing surprisingly well with my New Year's Resolutions until I got fired.  That put me way off track.  But I'm still on the tracks, somewhere, although I'm lost in the middle of West Virginia rather than speeding along the shinkansen between Osaka and Tokyo.  (Yes, I haven't lost my gift for terribly stretchy analogies!).

So that's it.  For my sake, nah, for the sake of others, I have to get my shit straight.  Starting now.  Promises are made to be broken, but I can't afford to let this one slip.

Oh yeah, my borrowing money anecdote: I borrowed a cool G today from Das; I met him at his work and he wrote me a check for it.  I walked over to the BofA next door, and out of habit got in line for the ATM (I always deposit via ATM).  I turn my head and see Das walking back towards me.  I run over to him to see what was up.  He explained it'd be better if I deposited inside with a teller, since that way the check would clear faster.  Figuring that was a good idea, I went inside and got in line.  I then looked down at the check and saw "Everything Anal" written in the line where it says "For:".   So I had to avert my head from the teller while she processed it, lest I turn a shade of red bright enough to blind people.

And these are the friends that I want to improve my life for.