Everything's changing again

I'm stuck at 238 approaches. My state has been absolute shit. I've also been going out this whole time, but I've been BAPping - a lot, actually. I haven't been blogging a lot about it because I really want to keep the negativity and the emo posts to a minimum in this blog. I just want there to be field reports, useful information, funny youtubes, and hopefully good things to report.

I've been thinking - here are a few things behind my change of state:

1. Seasonal Affective Disorder (check the post below). The carefree days of summer are over, fall is here and winter is coming. I'm sort of dreading the cold weather and the impending holidays.

2. I've been really focusing on my career and financial affairs, that shit isn't exactly fun, I've been spending a lot of time at home doing this home renovation and financial reorganization project. I'm naturally a worrier and I think this whole process of organizing all of my bills and responsibilities has just given me more stuff to obsess about. In the end this will be worth it because it is all stuff that will help in the future.

3. I notice my emotional state is very closely tied to my physical state - I have not been taking care of myself lately. I need to eat better, work out more, buy more clothes, and get my hair cut on a more regular basis. I have been gradually trying to eliminate smoking because being self conscious about bad breath also fucks my state. I'm also noticing that I'm drinking more lately when I go out - this is not only bad for my game but it also makes you fat.

4. Not playing guitar due to being busy with the home renovation crap. This may seem like a minor factor, but it's not. Playing guitar is one of the few things in this life that brings me any type of fulfillment.

5. Friends being all over the place, negative influences, unreliable, manipulative. This is a distortion - emotional reasoning, mainly, mind reading, overgeneralizations - basically the fallacy of 'if you feel it, it must be true'. Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don't watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person. It is very hard to be conscious of this when in the moment, dealing with other people. This is due to me not being more in touch with myself, and not believing in myself sometimes. I have to constantly check myself all the time when I slip into these types of thoughts.

6. Comparing myself to others. This is another distortion, a form of personalization closely tied to self esteem: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment's relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value.

7. I've also yet to strike the right balance between going out and taking care of my responsibilities. It always feels as if I'm going out too much and neglecting everything my career and finances, or I'm staying in too much and missing out on fun stuff.

Last week my therapist told me he thought I should consider taking prescription antidepressents. I decided I didn't want to deal with the side effects like gaining weight or loss of sex drive. I've also heard it can freak you out when you try to get off them. I decided to try taking fish oil supplements and St. John's Wort supplements before trying the more hardcore shit. It seems to have helped a little - I'm definitely not as lethargic and depressed as I was before, my thoughts are still all over the place though.

I went out last Saturday with JCB and Effect. We went to to this restaurant called the Mayan for Mexican food. We then met up with JCB's friends at this place called Kingstone Mines, JCB's friend was getting married. He seemed like a cool guy. We BAP'ed hard at Kingstone, even though there were a lot of girls there. I did get in one - really long - but completely worthless set at Longroom later on that night with this totally horrendous looking brunette. The guys gave me hell about her when I rejoined them at the bar.

I went out on the town with Diva and the Photographer and Effect. The Photographer drags us to a bunch of bars, all of them semi shitty - Cleo's, the bar across the street from Cleo's, Uptown Lounge, the Green Mill. We decide to go to Darkroom. I got one really good set in this night that I should have capitalized on, and 2 shitty sets that I don't even remember. Some stupid drunk bitch started fucking with me and hit her in the head with my hat. We stayed out pretty late and I was pretty hung over the next day. It was a pretty good time, I usually wake up the next day with a hangover and regret over BAP'ing.

We also went out a few times with no approaches -

Sunday night, Did we go out that night? I think we might have gone to Wicker Park and BAP'd.

Wed. night, We were supposed to interview this biatch for our business but she never showed up. I drove over straight from work and ran in the rain to get there on time but she stood us up. We thought about going out later on but were just not in the mood for it.

Thursday night, Horrible night where I go to this Financial Planning seminar with JCB and meet up with a bunch of lair guys. I should have never went to that thing, now these financial planner lair guys won't stop calling me - why does it surprise me that I am constantly meeting inauthentic people, people who want something from you, or who pre judge you? Maybe this is my problem, and I am too distrustful of people, and am not to new experiences, but I think I am. I also think my lousy state from the past couple of weeks might be at play here.

Friday night. We went to Andersonville, looked in the window at Simons and saw a bunch of 50 year old guys in suits smoking cigars, very few women, and got right back in the car and drove home. Ugh. Just didn't feel like dealing with that scene. Fucking situation with the lair guys also that I don't want to write about right now.

Saturday - was pretty fun, went out with Diva, Effect, and the Photographer to 3 parties. It was cool, but again I didn't approach anyone. Effect tried to get me to approach but I was a huge pussy about it. First party was this loft party held by this guy called Saverio. Pretty cool, Saverio seemed like a really nice guy. Second party was this party at this girl Ana's house, Ana is this cute girl that Effect is trying to either network with for a job or trying to get with. She had a lot of cute friends but goddamn that was a boring party - they were all sitting around watching Freddy vs. Jason. Cute girls though, also a bunch of dudes were there, of course. We bailed pretty quickly. I would have really liked to have stayed and talked to one of those girls. Third party was the best party, just wild. Held by Diva's friend Pam, her band was playing - they're called the Electrodes. Crazy dance punk type of music - two guitarists that look like the Misfits. Awesome crowd - street people, indie people, punk rockers, hot girls in halloween costumes, the whole gamut. We saw this girl spit on the guitar player for 'flashing her pussy' whatever that means.

So that's it. I'm at

238 approaches,

trying to snap out of whatever's come over me. Effect may think that he was weird, but that new age guy at the gallery party the other night was on the right path. I have to learn to let go of my need to control and the feelings of anger I keep bottled up inside - they are keeping me from getting in touch with my infinite and unbounded spiritual essence, which is pure consciousness, pure knowledge, infinite silence, perfect balance, invincibility, simplicity, and bliss, and is one with the power that manifests everything in the universe.