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April 28th 2009
Saved: July 12th 2020
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I started this blog close to 2 years ago to keep a few of my close friends connected with my shenanigans as I tore through Canada and Japan.

My first few entries were short, bullet point highlights of my week. There was no story…no development of characters…no embedded metaphors…just a list of the bare facts so I could remember them for later. I had 3 readers: my friends Teddy and C-Benz and Todd from Atlanta, a reader of Teddy’s who found his way to my site.

Sometime after I stopped being retarded—after I stopped GTAing police cars, after I stopped streaking through Tokyo, after I stopped chugging liquid Viagra, after I stopped trying to concoct “immature revenge plans” with Teddy—my life hit a brick wall. With the “maturity” of leaving my teen years came a Houdini of my ways. I could still party hard, just not in epic fashion. I could still hit on girls, but I was finding it disgusting. I could still get in trouble, but on a misdemeanor level.

To push my maturity along, I decided a relationship was needed to calm me. I blindly picked one of the many underclassmen girls who was googly-eyed with a cocky Japanese party animal from New York City. I realized I didn't love her the next morning but in an attempt to stabilize my chaotic life I kept telling myself (and her) I loved her.

We mutually agreed the relationship was going nowhere and broke up after three turbulent months. Suddenly, I was in one of the worst stretches of my life. I found myself devoid of affection and lacking the skills I normally had to even fleetingly convince myself someone loved me with a one night stand.

Accentuated by the long, dark Canadian winter, my single status bombarded every facet of my life and threw me into a spiraling freefall. What dragged me out of the harsh chill was a reminder of the fun and sun of the Japanese summer embodied in Chiaki. She was beautiful. She was cute. She was hope. She was the only escape I had. I had met her all of one night 5 months before, and I was in love.

During ten days breathtaking days in Calgary and Montana, I flung myself head-on and was rewarded with a plummeting tailspun back into the gloomy freeze of Montreal. I spent countless nights laying wide awake in an empty bedroom, chugging solitary triples of vodka and staring at the walls of my windowless room. I had no one to talk to. Teddy was soaring in the opposite direction after his last minute win in Calgary. D-German was a quiet Ottawan in some of my computer science classes who didn't seem to have a penchant for cutting sarcasm and dry grins. I had been ignoring my partying rez friends and I still hadn’t crashed a random party at Yusaku’s house to become introduced to the Asian scene in Montreal.

I had no one to talk to.

And then I remembered my blog, languishing in inactivity on Travelblog’s servers. Ten weeks, ten drippingly romantic messes posing as blog entries and my readership exploded. I was getting hundreds of hits, encouraging emails from people around the globe and my blog took off.

Since then, its been the same pattern.

Fall in love. Build up excitement as things look good. End up failing in the end. Blog. Repeat.

Along the way, I built up a strong readership who absolutely loved me and an equally strong camp who was disgusted by my antics. Glorifying misogyny, launching racist remarks and sprinkling in obscenities will make enemies on any family-oriented website. But even my foes were intrigued by my life—they became subscribers.

It wasn’t until Texas and this current school year that my blog started spiraling completely out of control. I showed my blog to a few friends in every locale and it spread like mono at a CPR practice session. Every one of my friends knew about it. I was averaging roughly 1,000 unique hits a month and more importantly, my readers started getting directly involved in my stories. Usually, that’s not a problem, but not when I’m writing the truth. And not when I can't censor myself.

I tried writing in the normal Travelblog style to avoid conflict: I went to A, talked to B, everything is good, let’s all hold hands and pretend we’re gaining some higher level of spiritual enlightenment that the plebes can’t attain. I couldn’t do it. I need to tell everything the way I see it. Without censor, no matter how crazy, how trivial, how cruel, how offensive. And that’s the problem. People can’t deal with the truth, because the truth hurts. And I write the truth.

Suddenly, my father was angrily lecturing me on my idiotic ways after stumbling onto the blog. Suddenly, I was getting yelled at by a girl I had fucked whose friends were avid readers of my blog. Suddenly, I was making out with a girl, writing it up and receiving a furious text to take it down. Suddenly, friendships were burned down as multiple friends angrily blasted me for frankly displaying their glaring deficiencies to everyone else.

And that’s where I find myself now.

Do I take down the blog? It would end all the squabble. It would help me socially. And losing friends is the worst feeling in the world. I don’t want to lose friends.

It would make my life simpler.

But I can’t forget the role this blog had in lugging me out of the clutches of depression. I can’t forget all the encouraging fan mail I’ve received. I can’t forget the feeling that people actually care about my mundane life.

What to do?


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Comments only available on published blogs

29th April 2009

What to do.
Accrete more layers. Problematize. Turn inward, face outward. Dig, do not bury. Once you've started, you can't go back. You couldn't stop now if you tried. If not here, then somewhere else. The story itself begs to be told. Just remember "the truth" ceases to be the minute you start telling the story. Teddy
29th April 2009

leave it up
simple. it is what it is. you've obfuscated people's identities enough. My .02 cents
30th April 2009

What to do indeed...
I must say, you in quite a conundrum (I don't even know if that's the right usage). I suggest keep up with the nicknames, and let your success come naturally. Don't use it for them hoes.
30th April 2009

one vote for up
This blog probably helps you too. In times of loneliness you'll realize there are still those who care (the readers).
4th May 2009

hi there :d
dude, you have a reader from Brazil lol :) one day i was bored at work and was searching for blogs that talked about abroad experiences, cuz i was a foreign exchange student in MN in 06-07 and well it was really interesting....... so i found your blog on google and i think i read all of it in a few days of boring work...... and by the way I also study computer science :)
5th May 2009

The double edge
All depends on how far you want to fall down the rabbit hole. I personally love your stuff, but then again, it doesn't involve me. I think if it had, I wouldn't say this: life is supposed to be about pursuing things that make you complete and happy. Even if its temporary. If you quit this blog, something that obviously makes you happy (personally, not because others enjoy it), because your being pressured indirectly to do so, then your going against yourself. Then again, my whole argument is void since I wouldn't be a supporter if it involved me on levels I'm not comfortable with. Tough choice, hope your criteria for deciding rests on what you think will make you a happier person.
12th May 2009

Thanks for the support
There's been an equally strong backlash, but obviously they haven't put their thoughts in a public forum. I'm still deciding what to do...

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