T-Minus 2 Weeks, And Life.

Two weeks to Vegas time.

Going a slight bit batty in the pre-trip rut. Haven't gone out in the City in weeks, and have 2 more weekends of boredom to endure before I can be released into an orgasm of fun, craziness and debauchery. Which for me means eating a lot, drinking even more, talking with people bartenders who don't care about me and losing money to machines that care even less.

My Vegas trips in a nutshell!

Under the "life in general" heading, work is a rut, nothing interesting going on for me and the one big project I had that could have elevated my standing there looks like it's on permanent hold. It's a dead end now, but the benefits of having been in a place for 6 years (matching 401k, dental/vision/FSA, 3 weeks of paid PTO) makes the inertia of not leaving hard to resist. I'm half-assedly looking for something else but it would take a pretty perfect situation for me to leave. Close to home, more money and something I more or less know I could excel at would be the ticket, but even in an employee' job market it's tough to find that w/o a degree. So I sleepwalk through my weeks doing as little as I can get away with, half hoping to be fired and collect unemployment but half hoping I can keep what I have.

I have a review coming up this month that should be very telling - last year's review increase was bad and insulting, if this one is the same the writing will be on the wall in permanent marker instead of pencil.

I've accumulated a bunch of debt in the last couple years that I really need to get under control. One of my CC's is maxed out, and the car loan and 401k loan I took out to get the Audi will be hanging over me for 2 more years at least. My rent is so low that I comfortably cover all of it and still have enough for all the Vegas, but I don't like having it hanging over my bald head. I've thought about debt consolidation but the interest rates are comical and all it really does is extend the debt out even further.

What I really need to do financially is take most of next year off from Vegas to get it all under control. Assuming no job changes that would mean a birthday trip and a Xmas trip and that's it. That would give me basically 8 out of 12 months to pay down debt and be in a stable position again. Maybe if things were going very well on the pay down I could add a short summer trip, we'll see. As of now that's the plan, and i intend to stick to it, but I have a tendency in life to shoot myself in the foot financially.

Socially, literally nothing to report. I haven't dated in over a year, and have made almost no effort to. I've had a couple questionable drunken hookups here on the Saturday social scene but nothing I would remotely pursue and frankly I'm not even looking at this point. Not saying I'm done with the female of the species but I'm certainly not making much of an effort to meet any of them either. The current climate of "me too" and the sort of demonizing of white men has made me pretty loathe to even engage in the game of mating. Not saying we didn't have it coming to us, but man it's a strange, vindictive, scary environment out there right now for us dinosaurs.

I don't do myself any favors anyway since I'm solidly in the "chubby, bald, middle-aged man" category anyway and can't seem to make any real effort to improve the health. The older I get the worse I feel, and while I don't always feel BAD I certainly can feel the downward spiral in effect. I'll be 50 next year...I'm well past the top of the bell curve. I always say I'm going to live forever but realistically at this point if I even make it to retirement age it'll be a win.

BUT IT'S NOT ALL BAD! I do have a pretty comfortable life. While I have some challenges, nothing really bothers me to the point of stress as has happened at other times in my life. I have a stable(ish) job, I've lived in a comfortable house for the past 9 years with no apparent end to that in sight. I still have something approaching health, I didn't fall into the trap of kids and wives and mortgages and life insurance. And I still, with all my little problems, manage to hit Vegas 3-4 times a year, which is maybe my one true passion anymore. And if you get to pursue at least one of your passions in life that's a good thing and I'm lucky to have it.

So that's my state of the FYMYAWF address, 2018. Some minor issues but all stuff I can work to fix, and in two weeks I'll be in the place where all my problems disappear and I can be as carefree as possible.

SO ready.