I need help. I'm a little bit out of control right now. I'll probably wake up tomorrow and delete this. It's 4:40am. I've gone through a lot this week and no one will care because it's all stuff I brought on myself. I brought it on with good intentions but I don't think I was thinking too clearly. I'm 31 and I know I should be starting a family, working a corporate job, have a house with a backyard, etc. I don't. Instead I work 15 hours a week, pay someone to clean my place, and spend time wondering where my best friend and I are going to have lunch during the day or drink that night. It actually sounds pretty cool on paper (or screen). I figured married by 25 and for some reason I picked someone for a relationship who I'm going to have to end up testifying against because I'm going to be subpoenad to help her son's Father get full custody. I'm not biased, but the truth will lend itself to that. I walk into bars and I seem to know everyone and they all seem to like me. I make out with random girls that I'm barely attracted to. Am I seeking validation? I have a best friend and he has pulled me out of two bars in recent months to keep me from getting my ass kicked. What life is this? With work, I'm so grateful to my customers who allow me to be self employed. Whenever a company says "customer appreciation" in front of a sale or a slogan or something I truly understand what is going on. I know what every customer means to a business owner. It's good knowing someone trusts you with a chunk of their lives and disposable (and sometimes not) income. I've learned never to take anyone for granted. In the last seven months I've told more people that "I love" them. It's because I truly do. I picture my life without them and I'm glad they're there. Imagine the most important people and things in your life and think about life without them. I know the people in New Orleans miss their homes more than they thought they ever would. We go through life in cruise control... it's numbing to think about the day in-day out lifestyle. We're cogs in a machine with the occasional vacation. Everyone needs a fight club. Everyone needs an Old School. I'm the #1 bachelor on the planet and I spent the better part of two years trying to maintain somewhat of a family with a girl and her son. It's ended badly. I'm not upset because of the girl, but because of the wasted time. I guess; I don't know. I was okay being a cog. Enchanted Forest trips, beach trips, Zoo trips, and so forth. Now I'm sort of in a single lifestyle whirlwind that I don't think any one of my friends can relate to. Add to that an inabilty to know when to stop drinking during the course of an evening and lonliness and anxiety turns itself into a pretty good drinking problem. I don't have a problem with drinking; I have a ton of booze at my house that I never, ever touch unless guests are over (and sometimes not even then). I have a problem stopping once I've started. I am fairly anxiety ridden and I think anything that eases that makes my brain think that more is always better. It happens, I'm not alone. I'm sorry I badmouthed my friends that had initial concerns about me. I guess when you live alone and you end up being self employed and making decent money it lends itself to a funky, party lifestyle. I'm not stopping anything but I think I'll seek some sort of counseling to sort out my life. I spent so much time trying to make my life look uncomplicated that it ended up being a nightmare. I'm not alone in self control issues. I think everyone has them. It's okay. Get help... I rely on my friends to call me a "loser" and to tell me I'm "better than that." It's not healthy. I have customers who are doctors and have acknowledged specific conditions that I have, which I've somewhat ignored. I'm going to try to address these. I think everyone should. It sucks because I'm probably going to delete this tomorrow when I have a clear head. I hate taking pills. Ironically, since I have no problem putting other stuff into my system. People who you'd think have their shit together are so screwed up that they kill themselves. I would never do that because I have too many people left in the world to piss off. My work isn't done. I guess if I'd released Nevermind then a shotgun to the head would be acceptable(?). We're all a product not of our environment but of the choices we've made in life. Anyway, Eurotrip is on and it's so unfunny that I can't miss a minute. GOOCH:out.

Only I could take a job such as laundering a sleeping bag and make it a full day's task. If you recall, I urinated into my friend JNAU's borrowed sleeping bag on the last day of our camping trip. I offered to replace the bag, but it's part of a matching set that she likes. There's not enough room in my washing machine for a sleeping bag, so I took it to the laundromat up the street.

Laundromats, as I recall from television and movies, are typically filled with single women, college girls, girls in their underwear because they're washing the clothes in which they were in. Folding tables are not for folding clothes but rather for anonymous sexual encounters.

The reality is me standing in front of a huge seventies styled washing machine with a garbage bag full of urine soaked sleeping bag. I'm all alone, which is good because I don't want anyone seeing me with a look of confusion on my face while trying to do a load of laundry. I know how to use my washing machine at home, but this is bewildering. I read the instructions:

Step 1: Look inside washing machine to ensure no children, pets, or foreign objects are inside.

No shit? My rule for warnings is that for a warning to exist someone had to make the mistake once. It had to happen at a laundromat. It had to be done by a lady with five kids with rollers in her hair and a fucking Virginia Slim in between her remaining teeth. My anticipated porno experience quickly became a white trash hell.

$5.00 to wash the sleeping bag. I'll be damned if I am going to return a sleeping bag in which I pissed to someone after washing it only once. Total cost was about $13.00 and half a day.

PUBLIC APOLOGY: to Marty for flaking on tennis today.

In order to save this website I've invited JNAU, a fellow writer, to submit postings on this blog. I hope she accepts because anger isn't really all that sexy and It's all that drives me at the moment. My diet consists of Red Bull, Vodka, and anger. Good stuff.

Dammit - Bob Denver dead at 70

Meanwhile I just got done working out. I feel under seige right now with the ex and my friends pissing me off. I've dug deep into the trenches of my massive cell phone list for girls I ignored for someone else because I want to make up an excuse for my leaving and try to have sex with them again. I don't even want to have sex with girls because I like them, but because I'm angry at my ex. I'm what you might call a prick.

I haven't gotten laid off this site for a while, I know that posting the last paragraph would kill my chances. So, let's keep this our little secret... 'k?

Gooch:back

Just got back from a rafting trip. I was reminded of my mortality when in the first set of rapids I was thrown from my raft and into an eddy where I tumbled under water for some 15-20 seconds. Death comes unexpectedly and in run-on sentences. The 25 people in the rafting party saw me go under and my paddle float away, which looks really fucking ominous. I made it out and soaked up the sympathy from the female rafters in the party.

Three nights and three days I drank more beer than I have in a long time. Seventy-five per cent of my caloric intake was from Coors Light. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. This morning I woke up in my jeans, soaked in urine, in my friend JNAU's sleeping bag.

Fuck. No one else in the camp party (except for JNAU) knew about it, but I share it with you.

I'm single now. Old School. I'm revamping this site. I almost killed it - shut down the seerver for good. It has jumped the shark. At what point do you think it jumped?

*Gooch graduates from college.
*Jam Magazine folds.
*Gooch appears on Jim Spagg's cable access show. Twice.
*Gooch and Cheryl break up.
*Gooch removes angry drunken post against Cheryl from the blog.
*Gooch loses his job.
*Gooch appears in daytime commercials recruiting deprssion study subjects.
*Gooch gets together with Meggan.
*Gooch breaks up with Meggan.
*Gooch gets back together with Meggan.
*Gooch removes posted picture of himself in a hot tub with a 20. year-old with whom he had sex because it hurt Meggan's feelings.


There's so much more that I have to do. I'm single again. For the first time in two years I'm happy. Not the kind of happy that comes from shotgunning a beer or waking up to a not-so-ugly chick. I do get drunk but I laugh myself to sleep instead of having panic attacks or wondering who I threw a fucking pool cue at the night before. I can make out with random chicks and not get emotionally attached. My only decision tonight is where Marty and I are going to get cocktails. Tomorrow: no alarm clock; just like every other day. Some people may judge, say I'm too old to live like this. Some say I should be more ambitious. Some people might even try to organize an intervention. These people may also want to bounce my balls on their tongue for a solid five minutes.

It's happy hour somewhere right now. I'm happy and I'm out.

GOOCH:out.