Money Changes Everything

I chose a career in the health care field for two reasons. Since I was a little kid I was always intrigued by science and how things work, especially the human body. I can't imagine not being at least somewhat aware of what makes us breathe, move, eat, sweat, piss, shit, bleed, etc. (Don't even get me started on how NICE it is to understand when things go wrong and I am sitting at the doctor's office!) The other reason for dedicating myself to health care was my innate altruist nature (Yes, I know, I am not as self absorbed as I let people believe!). I couldn't ever see myself working in any other sector because I felt that the best career to have was one that helps other people. That's not to say I look down on or disapprove of people who may be actors, retail workers, accountants, architects, etc. I simply believe the difference between having a job and having a career is possessing a force or belief that motivates one to follow a particular professional path. Altruism via medicine and science is what has always motivated me.

I bring this up today because there are downsides to dedicating oneself to a particular profession, especially one that requires a shit load of schooling. I am reading the news lately and I am completely aware that the economy isn't doing that great. However, if someone asked me to explain exactly what was going on I wouldn't be able to. Believe it or not, but during the 5 years I obtained my Bachelor of Science and the 4 years I am currently working on my Doctor of Pharmacy, I have only been required to take ONE semester of economics. Yes, that is correct and not a typo as some people might so obnoxiously point out. :)

Prior to pharmacy school I took a Macroeconomics course at UIC. It was very interesting. I learned about supply, demand, inflation, trade deficits, etc. I had a really hot female professor who undoubtedly gave the straight boys boners whenever she talked about the economy in her leather hooker boots and short skirts. She explained everything very well but to this day I really don't understand how the economy works. The stock market might as well be a Chinese foreign film without subtitles.

So I read about the problems right now and wonder just how bad things really are. I also wonder how many other people out there are like me and don't know what to think. Some analysts make it sound like we are going to become a third world country by next month. Others say it's simply going to be more difficult to borrow money for homes and cars or to even get a credit card.

So, as I don't have the economic knowledge to make heads or tails of the situation, I sleep well knowing my student loans are already approved until I graduate, I don't plan on buying a new car or home anytime soon and I have a shit load of credit cards that I got from 10 years ago when banks gave them away like candy. So I won't panic just yet.

But what about my soul?

I might get slack for complaining about this, but in the past 4 days I have been "propositioned" by 5 different guys. You know, I can't have sex with everyone I meet! (Trust me, I've tried though!) Geez! I am so close to changing my number. I am getting tired of all of these people wanting some nookie from me. I have a mind too. What about my soul?

And yes, I realize I am being a major hypocrite considering the title of my blog. But hey, I make the rules around here and can bitch about whatever I feel like.

Hmmmm......I guess I am not so much complaining about all these guys bugging me for some nookie. In fact, I guess it is kind of flattering in a really slutty kind of way, but when I consider some of the surrounding circumstances I feel like telling some of them to go find a good porn and fuck off.

Guy #1 I alluded to this one in a recent post. You know, I've seen him out in the bars. I'm polite and that's about it, but when he found me online this past summer he was suddenly all up in my grill. Ugh. I tried to be nice but I just had to tell this one flat out "NO". Not to mention, I suspect he's into drugs. No thank you!

Guy #2 is also another one I have blogged about. We met back in June. It was amazing.....until he dropped off the face of the earth without any notice. Now two months later I suddenly get a text message "I'm back in town I want to see you". Um, how fucking rude. I don't care how hot he was. I'm not Triple A. You can't call me in an emergency when you are out on the road and expect me to be ready and willing.

Guy #3: Ok, so technically this is one of my Secret Friends. We used to have some benefits awhile back but he got all weird so we stopped and kept things very plutonic. Now out of the blue he wants the benefits back. What the fuck. When you get rid of something on ebay do you contact the buyer months later asking for the item to be returned? Um, no!

Guy #4 is a potential new friend with benefits. He still needs to pass a few more tests and inspections before anything is official. He's what you might call "still in the test drive phase".

Guy #5 is the current FWB: a sexy Russian guy! Yum!

Miss Jackson If You're Nasty

Last night I attended Janet Jackson's "Rock Witchu 2008 Tour". Earlier this summer I had received a pre-sale password for tickets so I ended up with decent seats. At the time I wasn't sure who I would be going with (Janet just isn't that popular nowadays!) but things worked out well as it was one of my Secret Friend's birthday this week. So, I am not one to give long drawn out stories detailing my concert experiences but I think this sums up everything quite nicely.

1. Janet's "in between albums" weight should have discouraged her from wearing some of those outfits. Of course, I think the outfits were bad regardless of her thunder thighs.

2. Janet's hair screamed "hot tranny mess".

3. The set list was quite delightful! Never have I seen an artist with such an extensive catalogue cover ALL of the hits AND throw in a few goodies for hard core fans. Granted she ignored "hits" like "Because Of You" but who even remembers that song anymore? Now, i practically SHARTED with excitement when she threw down with a medley of her pre-Control songs. As soon as she said "1982 Young Love!" I started screaming like a little girl getting her period for the first time. I tried to video tape the performance but I was too busy jumping up and down! LOL

4. Janet has no shame when it comes to lip syncing. She doesn't even try to hide it! Ashlee Simpson take note! LOL

5. The videos projected on the screens in the background were lame and reminded me of those old TV advertisements for Zelda back in the day.

6. Those same video screens though were actually quite cool when it came time for her duets with Nelly, Dave Navarro and Q-Tip.



On a side note, can I just say Nelly is SOOOOO freaking HOT! YUM!!!!!!

7. Speaking of hot, sexy, muscular male rappers, LL Cool J was the opening act. As much as I love his new album I must admit his performance was terrible. I heard so many people in the audience (even the ghetto ones! lol) breathe a sigh of relief when he finally finished.

So overall the concert was good enough to keep me dancing so much that today my poor calves are killing me! Ouch!

A Grateful Thief

I need to write a thank you letter to the person whose internet I stole. I came home last night and my cable internet service was down. I don't know why. This has only happened during really bad thunderstorms and the skies were clear last night. Nevertheless I began to panic because I had some important emails to send. So I turned on my wireless internet port and prayed that I cpuld hijack someone's wireless service in my building. Well, lucky for me I have a neighbor who has wireless service with NO password needed to log in! I felt a little guilty for stealing someone's internet but I figured it was more like "borrowing". You know, like back in the good old days when you could borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor if you ran out. I should be commended for upholding such traditional neighborly values. I feel so Republican! (well, nevermind, if I was a Republican I would shoot down my neighbor's door, kill him/her and just plug in my computer in his/her home and steal the internet that way......all the time saying I was actually trying to protect the other residents of my building from a computer virus of mass destruction)

Anyhoo, I checked my regular internet service this morning and it was up and running so I turned off my wireless port. Thank you "home" for not having a password blocking your shit.

Gimme A Break

It is a Saturday and I have the entire day off. The weather is beautiful and more than likely the bars will be packed tonight. Nevertheless I am staying at home to do laundry and study and I am perfectly fine with that. In the past few weeks so many friends have been either annoying the fuck out of me or just being way too dramatic that I am taking a mult-friend sabbatical. Seriously, if the phone doesn't ring once I won't fucking care. I need a break from so many people and their fucking problems.

Other than that, there isn't much else to report here.....for now at least!

Gay Cartoons

The stuff you can find on You Tube is hilarious!

Racial Profiling

Racial profiling is something we all do and if there is someone reading this who thinks they are just so fucking politically correct that they NEVER are guilty of this can go fuck themselves because they are lying. When I see an Asian driver in front of me on the express way I curse and realize I am going to be stuck driving 20 miles below the speed limit. When I am on the south side of Chicago and see a short brown person I assume they are Mexican and don't speak English. When I meet a White person from a small rural town I expect them to be a racist Republican.

Now, I expect all of these things but at the end of the day I treat everyone the same because I do realize stereotypes are just that, stereotypes. I will wait a few minutes before I decide to pass an Asian driver. When on the south side I still attempt to speak English first. When I am in a small town I don't immediately look for the burning crucifixes. However, sometimes racial profiling can be quite funny when I get the complete opposite of what I was anticipating. Today I was looking for a few CD's at Best Buy when a ghetto fabulous young black girl came into the same aisle as me with her equally ghetto fabulous boyfriend. She could barely see with her 5 foot long hair extensions and could barely flip through the CD's with her 3 inch long gold studded fake nails. Her boyfriend was barely standing straight as he was weighted down with about 25lbs of gold chains and pants that were sagging lower than most the Golden Girls' breasts. It was at this time I noticed I was standing in front of the new hip-hop/Rap releases. Surely they were looking for the new Ice Cube, Young Jeezy or Lil Wayne cd's so I politely moved of the way. It was at that point I heard the girl exclaim "Oh, damn Tyrone, I know dis shit jus' done come out. Where they be havin' it????!!!". She paused, turned around and with a flip of her hair extensions her artificial nails/claws found the cd she had been desperately looking for in the new releases behind her.........




Miley Cyrus is keeping it real! LOL

Bienvenido a Miami

So I am back from my second mini-vacation to Miami. I call it a mini-vacation because it was the second of two quick trips I planned during the two weeks I had off between my summer internship and fall classes (which resumed this Monday and will be the LAST first day of school EVER for me! woo hoo!) Normally this would be the point I would post a bunch of pictures and go on and on about what a great time I had. Well, I did have a great time. I stayed with my Secret Miami Friends who are two of the sweetest people I have met in years. However there are no pictures because this wasn't necessarily a trip for leisure. This trip was purely for investigational purposes. I have been a travel whore these past few years and I have had the chance to see various cities. There was something about Miami that made me want to go back twice this year. There was something that honestly made me think I might even want to live there. Maybe it was the climate? Or maybe the completely different lifestyle and culture compared to the midwest? I'm not sure. While I haven't made any final decisions just yet I can definitely say the idea of moving to Miami is no longer and idea. It's now a serious consideration I am going to proceed to explore this last year of school.

Next time this year I will no longer be a frustrated grad student in my 20's. I will be 30 (well, technically 24 again but I can be honest about my age just this one time) and embarking on a brand new career. It will be also the first time in several years that leaving Chicago to explore my options elsewhere will be a possibility. So I will see how things go and hopefully before next summer I can make a decision. Chicago is great but I am starting to get the feeling it's time for a change. We'll see.

Cyber Friends

In my last post I thoroughly examined the source of much of my frustration when it comes to online hook ups. Well, in keeping up with the wholesome, family oriented vibe I try to achieve with my blog I thought I would also talk about my Cyber Friends. The internet can connect people from all over the world and I am no exception. I used to post on a now defunct pop music forum where I met many wonderful people from all over. Some of these individuals I was able to meet in real life. With school this past year I found myself spending less and less time on music forums to the point where I hadn't logged in for such a long time I forgot my password. Nevertheless, despite my absence from the music forums, I have stayed in touch with my Cyber Friends via this blog, myspace, facebook, youtube, etc. This past weekend I was fortunate enough to not meet up with just one, but two of them!

My Cyber Friend from Atlantla, Eric, made an unexpected visit to Chicago this past weekend. I have chatted with him for years, sharing music and celebrity gossip alike. We had dinner at a local Thai restaurant (the budget friendly Joy's Noodles) and then both spent a fortune at the local music shop buying all sorts of faggy goodies like janet Jackson DVD's, Ricky Martin CD's and even a Madonna poster! lol.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting a long time Cyber Friend from England, Jamie. Jamie is special because not only was he the driving force behind the 2006 reissue of La Toya Jackson's debut 1980 album, BUT he even gave me a shout out in the liner notes! So I was honored to meet the original "Toy Soldier" at Nookies Too in the lovely Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago.

See, the internet isn't all about hooking up and sex! You can actually find friends!

Cyber Courage

We have all heard of liquid courage, right? You know, when you need alcohol to do something so horribly shameful and disgusting you normally wouldn't consider it in a million billion years.....like Celine Dion karaoke. Well, "cyber courage" is basically the same thing except it involves hiding behind a computer screen to do those things one normally wouldn't have the guts to do. In particular, I am thinking of dating/hook-up websites.

I recently resurrected my online hook up profile on a popular men-4-men website. I figured online tricking was a good way to spend my free time this summer as opposed to spending money on Michigan Avenue (I also considered volunteer work but apparently the local GLBT clinic is too good for me!) I am not sure if my plan worked because I still managed to spend money buying shit online. LOL. Anyhoo, getting back to the point of my post, my brief stint tricking online had me dealing with many men who appear to have LOTS of cyber courage. My profile was VERY specific about what I was looking for. Needless to say I was bombarded by all sorts of guys that I WASN'T looking for because they were either illiterate or let their cyber courage soften the blow of a potential rejection. Now, I can understand cyber courage. Not because I necessarily used it myself, but it does make sense. What I didn't understand were the numerous acquaintances I know in real life that would proposition me when they bumped into me online.

Now seriously, if I have seen these guys out in the bars all this time and I have showed ZERO interest up until now, what makes them think me running into them online will make a difference? God what retards.

What's even worse were the ones who had profiles filled with "conflicting" information compared to what I know to be true in real life. What a bunch of fucking losers. If you are going to lie about something at least be smart enough to be consistent. Don't tell me the truth in real life and then hit me up with your falsified profile online.

So this week I am taking a last minute vacation to Miami before my classes resume. I have also retired my online hook-up profile for the time being. There isn't time for the extra stress in my life! LOL