And Then What Happened: Boston Part 2

If you missed part 1 of the Boston story, here's where to find it. Really, this photo does more to explain the weekend than anything I could say. It was taken on Sunday afternoon, on our way back from watching football downtown with Katie, Lindsey and my cousin Justine. It took MAYBE 30 seconds for us both to fall asleep.

Anyway. I'm sure I've talked about this before, but I've never in my life had a hangover. I've never gotten sick from drinking too much. I've definitely had enough to warrant those situations, but for whatever reason, it hasn't ever happened. My working theory is that I'm a superhero of some kind with the lamest super powers ever. But I digress.

Now I'm not sure exactly what a hangover feels like. I've woken up and not felt great -- a little bit of a sour stomach sometimes, maybe a slight headache. But it's never been anything I couldn't just wake up and power through.

Well, I woke up on Saturday morning with the biggest headache I'd ever had after drinking. I blame the scorpion bowls. I had some water and took a shower, and I was good after I had some food. I don't know if that counts as a hangover or not, but it's definitely the closest I've ever come. I still say no.

Langdon and I were up around 7:45 or 8 a.m. to head to the airport to pick up J. Mike. Let me take a second to plug J. Mike's blog, where he posted his own story about Boston. Very cool. When J. Mike got in the car, we started recounting some of our old Technician road trip stories. J. Mike and I talked about our infamous trip to cover the Miami game in 2007 where we realized we did not have our press passes two and a half hours in the trip and turned around. "BG, turn around, man. I don't have the press passes." Oy haha.

Then Langdon and J. Mike told a story about a road trip to Winston-Salem to cover a Wake Forest game. The game was long over, and the interviews were done. Langdon and J. Mike exited the field house with the new writer they'd taken along with them, only to be semi-accosted by a homeless man who screamed, for no apparent reason, "And then what happened!" As Langdon told the story, he broke into a dead run as soon as the man yelled. J. Mike followed along quickly enough, leaving the young writer alone. Like you do. Naturally, they tried to spin it into a life lesson for the poor kid in the car.

So there you go. I did what I do, and I ran the saying into the ground all weekend. And then what happened.

We'd made plans to meet Carnell, Katie and Lindsey at this bar near BC's football stadium. There's not a whole lot of room to tailgate for games there, so people often go to bars. This particular bar -- City Bar, I believe it was called -- is where the N.C. State Boston alumni chapter meets before games. Carnell was nowhere to be found until the second quarter of the football game. The girls were very slow to arrive at the bar as a result of Friday night.

Langdon, J. Mike and I had a few drinks and some food and met up with a bunch more of the DC folks who made the trip. We made our way to the stadium, and the game was terrible from the start haha. We were down 7-0 before we even found our seats. What can you do. We laid an egg in the game and lost 14-10. Obviously, we now know how the regular season ends, so it's all good.

That game was the first time I'd really heard the song "Shipping Up to Boston." I documented my thoughts on that last week. I was getting fired up, and they weren't even playing it for me.

So there's not a whole lot to say about the game. After the game, however, Langdon, J. Mike and I hopped on the T to get back downtown to meet Langdon's roommate and his girlfriend for some drinks. We sat down, and I could already tell I was only minutes from sleep. But Langdon saw this guy in a Boston Transit uniform, drinking something out of a Gatorade bottle. Langdon, being Langdon, asked him what kind of Gatorade it was. "My own special blend," he said. (I'm sure it is, I add parenthetically.)

The man, whose name I cannot recall nor do I know if we ever knew, came and sat down near us to share his life story. All I remember is he "fackin' hates loyahz," and he and his ex-wife have a standing appointment in court seemingly daily.

I passed out not long after, but Langdon kept up a conversation the entire ride downtown. And then what happened. Indeed.

The combination of Friday night and a long day on Saturday left all of us pretty drained. We headed back to Langdon's apartment after a few drinks at an Irish pub downtown. When we got back, his roommate and roommate's girlfriend cooked homemade enchiladas for us all. LEGIT. So very good. The roommate made us some kick-ass drinks, too, but of course I don't remember what they were. If Langdon reads this, maybe he can chime in on that. I'd love to know what that drink was. Some kind of ginger beer mixture. For the win.

I tried incredibly unsuccessfully to make plans with Katie and Lindsey. They were, understandably, exhausted and not sure they were going to make it out. Well we were having none of that. So we hit the T and headed downtown. We ended up a bar called Hurricane O'Reillys. Carnell found us while we waited outside, and we headed in. It was pretty much redonk. J. Mike was so excited to be out with us, he joyfully bought all our drinks that night (THANKS BUDDY). Naturally, we drank, I think, four High Life tallboys each. Like you do. Keepin' it classy.

Well, you know how I roll. I got a couple of drinks in me, and it was time to dance. Listen. My arms get involved when I dance. Out to my sides. Above my head. I'm just grooving, man. I can't help myself. The problem was this: I've never seen a more crowded dance floor in my life. My arms were stuck to my sides because I simply couldn't move them.

Carnell peaced out to meet up with some other people he was in town with, so we worked our way over to a side bar and kind of made our own dance floor for a bit. J. Mike got really excited and bought us shots of straight Jager. I don't often take shots of straight liquor. The occasional shot of Jameson this summer, I suppose, but it's not common.

Here's how you know I had a good time. I was checking my Twitter feed after the weekend, and I found the following tweet, timestamped at 1:34 a.m. while we were out Saturday night: "Aww sookie sookie now."

Clearly, I was feeling it.

Langdon and I were finally able to get up with Katie and Lindsey, who DID make it out Saturday night. Katie sent us a picture of the wallpaper where they were and told us to find them and have fun with the scavenger hunt. Of course. As we were getting ready to leave, this guy walked by Langdon, J. Mike and I and LITERALLY showed his teeth to Langdon. What in the world. It was one of the strangest things I've ever seen.

I'm sure Katie and Lindsey have figured this out by now, but there's no chance we could have found them if Katie hadn't checked in at the restaurant/bar on Facebook. I saw the check-in, googled the name and we were on our way.

I left my sister a drunk voicemail. Langdon and J. Mike left Nick and drunk voicemail that went straight to his voicemail hall of fame. Like you do.

So we were walking down to street toward the restaurant where Katie and Lindsey were with some other friends of theirs when these two girls jumped out of an alley, grabbed me by the arms, pulled me into the alley and threw me against the wall.

In my head, I'm thinking, "YEEAAH BUDDY. Best night of my life! Pre-emptively!" I've seen this movie; I know how it ends. One girl was so drunk, all she could do was lean against me. The other girl said to me, in a reasonably thick Boston accent (which is surprisingly endearing on young, cute girls and not middle-aged drunk men), "Please help us. This guy has been following us for, like, five blocks now, and he's really scaring us. You look like you're really cool, so can you pretend to be our friend so maybe he'll leave us alone?"

I'm thinking, well you're the ones that have me pinned against a wall in an alley. Do I need some help? But I said, sure why not. Apparently I look much more intimidating than I feel because that was the second time in a couple of months I was asked to scare someone off.

What the hell do you do in that situation? I looked over at the guy as menacingly as I can (read: not very), and the girls started talking really loudly, "Oh my god, Chris, thank GOD we found you! We've been looking for you for so long!" I continued looking at the guy menacingly, and he seemed to get the point and wandered off.

The girls kissed me and ran off down the street, thanking me profusely. So. That happened haha.

Langdon and J. Mike watched the whole situation unfold and were totally engrossed in what I told them about it. It was so bizarre. I'll tell you what, though. Shit like that DOES NOT happen to fat dudes. It just don't! So once again, hooray losing more than 40 pounds! haha

We finally found the restaurant after some googling and wandering. Katie and Lindsey were extremely surprised we found them. Langdon and I just looked at each other, and we were like, c'mon. Of course we did. Lulz. J. Mike was barely coherent at this point, which was awesome because he began to tweet complete and total gibberish the entire time we were there.

Unfortunately for the world, he went back and deleted it the next morning. I wish I had some examples.

Around 2 or 2:30 a.m., we decided it was time to head back. Now, remember the cab situation I faced the night before? Yeah. Again. Not only was it hard to get the cab drivers even to stop, but when they DID stop and heard where we were going, they often drove off immediately.

So the three of us fanned out to try to get a cab. Langdon and I were on opposite sides of this main street, trying to flag them down. J. Mike, however. Oh lord.

J. Mike took to standing ON the center line in the street, punching cabs as they drove by. It didn't seem like a sustainable situation, but wow do I wish I'd taken a picture of it.

Eventually, we came up with a new strategy. Langdon flagged down the cabs and distracted the driver while I jumped in the backseat and refused to move. Once I got in the backseat, they hopped in too, and we were just like, dude. We've got cash. We're not moving. Drive us home, you know? Shit.

I fell asleep in the cab immediately. Like you do. Like I do, anyway. We got back, paid the cab and headed upstairs. I crashed on the couch so fast I didn't even have time to change clothes.

Sunday morning was a bit rough for J. Mike haha. We finally got him out of bed around noon so we could head downtown to watch football with Lindsey and Katie. And my cousin Justine! Justine lives in Boston, and we tried unsuccessfully to coordinate hanging out Friday and Saturday, but Sunday there was no excuse.

I hadn't seen her since the wedding back in September 2009 that I've talked about so much. Her brother is the one who got married. But she came and hung out with us, and she exhibited what appears to be a BG-family personality trademark: infectious enthusiasm and energy. Good times.

She definitely helped rally us because we were dragging from two solid days of nonsense and staying out until 4 a.m.

Alas, my flight was that night, so we had to head back. The photo up top is from this point in the story. We fell asleep on the T in no time. J. Mike was too nervous to fall asleep, but you could tell Langdon and I are seasoned subway travelers. We fell asleep and would wake up at each of the stations as we approached the station we needed -- which is exactly how I roll on the DC metro.

Made it to the airport and headed back to DC. As we were exiting the plane at National, Katie gave us the most appropriate quote for the entire week: "It's kind of weird being sober."

Indeed it was.

Final verdict: Boston was infinitely more awesome than I expected to be, and I would love to go back very, very soon so I can do actual nerdy touristy things.

Boston, well done!

As always, thank you so, so much for reading and for telling me you enjoy the stories. I get such a huge kick out of knowing people actually like reading my BS.

It should be another insane weekend, again, starting tonight with a party with some work friends, continuing on Saturday night with a holiday-themed bar crawl downtown and then finishing up on Sunday with a date! Doin' the bull dance. Feelin' the flow. Let's GO. Hopefully there will be some blog-appropriate stories! Have a great weekend, kids.

Later!

-BG

And Then What Happened: Boston Part 1

Oh boy is this post long overdue. For a few reasons, actually.

First, I went to Boston a month ago. Ha. Second, I've been trying to write this since Sunday night, but I keep falling asleep while trying to write. Like, falling asleep on the couch with the computer in my lap. But all night. Like you do. It is now Tuesday night, and I will do anything to finish this tonight (Ed. Note: I did, and then forgot to post it before I left work. I am clearly still adjusting to writing at night.)

Anyway.

Back in August during the CAN softball tournament, one of my teammates suggested we all head up to Boston for the N.C. State/BC football game. She lives in New Hampshire, and she said it'd be fun if we all came up. What a great idea! I'd never been to Boston, but I also never thought I'd want to go. In case you don't know, I'm a Yankees fan, and I'm kind of irrational about how much I hate Boston. I just never wanted to go.

Well. The city of Boston is pretty awesome. I'm totally glad I went, and I'd actually like to go back sometime when I won't be spending an entire day at a football game. I'd like to do some touristy stuff, you know? You do.

So here we go!

Lucky for me, the game fell on Veterans Day weekend. Since I'd just started this job a few weeks earlier, I didn't have much time off accrued. But Veterans Day was a floating holiday! We get three floating holidays a year, and since I was working the last third of the year, I'd get to use one. So I was able to get off work on Friday to fly to Boston. I managed to get on the same flight as Lindsey and one of the Katies (the only one of the three who made the trip, so she'll just be Katie from here on out haha).

As I was walking onto the plane, I heard the gate attendant say the following to another passenger: "You better buckle up! It's pretty windy, so you're probably going to have a rough flight!"

Do what now.

I would not say I'm scared to fly. I really do rather enjoy flying places. It's just that I have a sort of heights...thing. I don't care for them. So yeah. Definitely not afraid to fly, but you know. Nerves. That's all. And hearing Flo the Gate Attendant cheerfully tell another passenger we were in for a rough flight -- c'mon now. Thankfully, the flight did not live up to her warning. It was totally fine.

So we landed and my old Technician buddy Langdon came to pick us up. He gets out of the car, and he said, "BG what is UP, my dude?" Katie and Lindsey were amused someone else from an entirely different group also called me BG.

Brief tangent: I'm not entirely sure how BG came to be my nickname. Well, OK. Obviously I do because it's my initials, but it stuck with my Raleigh friends, and then my DC friends began calling me BG, too, and I'm reasonably certain I never told either of them to call me that. It just naturally came up and stuck. I like it, so it's all good. Just kinda funny.

We dropped the girls at their hotel downtown, and Langdon and I headed for his apartment outside the city. Awesome, awesome apartment, and a pretty cool up-and-coming neighborhood. We grabbed some drinks with his roommate and his roommate's girlfriend at this really cool bar up the street. They don't sell food at the bar, so they allow two things: you can bring your own food in, and you can bring dogs in. Awesome.

Lindsey, Katie and I wanted a unique Boston experience for dinner. Langdon and his roommate recommended this place called Pizzeria Regina, near Boston's Little Italy. Well, I don't know if you've met me, but you don't have to convince me very hard to eat some pizza. And everyone we asked raved about Pizzeria Regina, calling it the best pizza in Boston.

After a couple of drinks with Langdon, he pointed me in the direction of the subway, and I worked my way downtown to meet the girls. The restaurant was going to be, like, a 15-minute walk from their hotel, so we decided to cab it. Pizzeria Regina looked legit from the outside. It's a pretty small place, so waiting outside is almost guaranteed. But they do it right, with heat lamps and benches outside. Very nice. We were a small party, so we didn't have to wait long.

Naturally, we ordered a couple of bottles of wine to get the night started right, as you can see in the photo. You know how we roll. We end up deciding on a margherita pizza with green peppers added. See the photo. It was redonk. Lindsey asked the waitress for some ranch for the pizza. In what I imagine to be true Boston style, the waitress looked right at her and said, "Oh we don't do ranch here. I'll bring you what we do have. It's better anyway."

Well then.

It was some kind of oil and garlic mixture. It was, of course, quite good. The pizza was amazing -- I can't say "best pizza in Boston" because it's the only pizza I had in Boston. But I will say I don't believe the claim to be ridiculous. At all. The walls were lined with pictures of famous people who'd eaten there and left their autographs, including a photo of our waitress with Danny DeVito. Lindsey and Katie took a picture of an autographed Leonardo DiCaprio photo on the wall, uploaded it to Facebook and tagged all three of us in it. Like you do.

So obviously with two bottles of wine, we'd built up a solid buzz already. We finished with dinner around 9ish and cabbed back to the girls' hotel. We had, like, half a bottle of wine we needed to polish off before we headed out for the night.

A few frantic phone calls between Langdon, my cousin Justine (who also lives in Boston), Carnell (who also made the trip to Boston) and one of the three of us eventually led to us settling on going to this place called Hong Kong. We were told it was a grimy place with fun drink specials where you can really dance.

I mean. Sign me up.

So we went to Hong Kong, and it was exactly as described (read: awesome). Check out the drink special. It's called a scorpion bowl. I'd never heard of these things before, but it's basically fruit juice, sugar and the cheapest brandy and liquor you can imagine. In a giant bowl. With four straws. Aaaand we drank two of them between the four of us (Katie, Lindsey, Carnell and me). And then the dancing started. And it was, predictably, incredible. Gah we had such a good time.

So the four of us were dancing in a circle when this girl came up behind me, grabbed me around the waist and started dancing with me. I mean. I'll allow it. She seemed...interested (to say the least haha). After a while, she looked at me and said, "You do not move. I'm not done with you. I have to go get a drink." Well OK. What's your name? Let's just say she shared a name with a recent ex-girlfriend of mine. Because of course she did. Lulz. No matter. She never reappeared after leaving.

The dancing and drinking continued, and we decided to leave around 2 a.m. The girls' hotel was close enough to walk to from Hong Kong. Langdon's apartment was decidedly not haha. Here's my least favorite thing about the city of Boston: their subway closes at midnight! What in the world!

It has to be collusion between the city and cab drivers, who are all assholes because they can be super selective. They know we all have to get a cab, so it's insanely competitive. I've never seen anything like it.

Obviously, I am not a cute girl, nor was I wearing revealing clothing, so it took me a solid HOUR to get a cab. An hour! I finally made it back to Langdon's around 3:30 a.m. He offered me a glass of wine, which I'm pretty sure I aggressively declined. Look, we needed to go to sleep. We had to wake up the next morning at 8 a.m. to pick up J. Mike from the airport!

And so we did.

Come back for part 2, which may or may not be the conclusion, depending on how much I write haha. Anyway, it will include such exciting details as the explanation for the title of these posts ("And then what happened?!"), our encounter with a (probably drunk) Boston transportation employee on the T and J. Mike attempting to fight cabs in the middle of the street, like you do.

Later!

-BG

Hey. Thanks.

Yeah. I know I'm a couple weeks late on this, but Thanksgiving happened while I was on my blog vacation. Naturally, I have some thoughts.

It's no secret 2011 hasn't been my best year -- although it did rally something serious starting at the end of October. Well, when you go through rough times, you learn a lot about yourself and your friends and the people who care about you.

I've definitely got that. I learned more this year than I ever have before -- about humility, about perseverance, about trusting my instincts, about not being afraid of accepting help, about the importance of a positive attitude, and so on and so on.

Finally, I feel like I've made it through the storm. I feel so good, and there are innumerable things for which I'm incredibly thankful. Since I didn't write anything on Thanksgiving, I figured why not now?

Fair warning, though. It's about to get real up in this piece. So in the spirit of Thanksgiving (two weeks ago), I couldn't have made it through this year without the following things (some very obvious, some maybe not so much), albeit it an incomplete list:

My Family -- My dad slipped me a $20 bill every time he saw me. My mom sent me home with food every time I saw her. My grandfather was so upset when he heard about my job back in January, he sent me a card with a check for $50 in it. Seriously. That happened. Is it getting dusty in here? I mean. There aren't enough words.

My Friends -- You guys. For reals. You're all ridiculous, and I don't know what I would have done without our weekly (or more often) debaucheries this summer and fall. You were there with a kind and encouraging word when I needed it and with a disparaging word when it was necessary haha. And you continue to be awesome.

Fridays at the Bottom Line -- The best happy hour in DC. It's tough to beat the $1 beer specials. We can go in there and all get drinks for like $25 total, which would cover like three drinks anywhere else in the District. Many a ridiculous night has originated at the Bottom Line, and I hope for more to come VERY shortly. Like this week, I hope.

Running -- Reluctantly crouched at the starting line. Engines pumping and thumping in time. The green light flashes. The flags go up. Churning and burning, they yearn for the cup. You're fired up right now, aren't you? The first few lines to "The Distance," by Cake. It's the first song on my running playlist every time I run. Since April, when I started watching what I eat and exercising intensely, there have been times where I was simply overwhelmed. And nothing cleared my head, got the blood pumping or burned the energy better than a solid four-mile run. Whenever I go a few days or weeks without running, that first run back is a rush of excitement, and I always remember how much I love it now. It's so funny because I hated running until I forced myself into a half-marathon two years ago. Since then, I've run two 5Ks, and I registered for a second half-marathon here in DC in March. CAN'T WAIT.

Losing Weight/Being Healthier -- You may have heard, but I've lost more than 40 pounds since April. You know what never gets old? I wore pants yesterday I couldn't even pull up to my waist just a few months ago. Never mind buttoning them, I couldn't even get them up to my waist. And I wore them comfortably yesterday. Incredible. I was wearing XL shirts just eight months ago. Now, I wear mostly mediums. I have a size medium coat. What in the world. This time last year? I was almost 230 pounds. I weighed in Monday night after my run at 186, which is even more of an accomplishment given how I spent the months of October and November up and down the East coast. More on that next week.

Dancing -- Dude. I never knew how much I loved it until this past summer. But, man, what an unbelievably freeing and exhilarating time. Play a little Jackson 5 ("I Want You Back," especially) or, really, any 60s music, I'm totally in. Oh who are we kidding...I'm good with anything. Lulz.

My Job -- First and foremost, I straight-up love my co-workers. You guys are brilliant and hilarious, and I could not be more excited about this opportunity. It challenges me in new and exciting ways every day, and I'm learning something new seemingly by the minute. What more can you ask for?

My Best Friends -- Jon, you are like a brother to me. We've been friends for, what, 17, almost 18 years now? Incredible. You have a way of cutting right to the point in exactly the way I need to hear it exactly WHEN I need to hear it. I often, unwisely, do not heed your advice (just as we both know I probably won't this time...LULZ), but, rest assured, I know I probably should haha. And it is always most appreciated. Sometimes I just need to go down magnificently in flames, consequences be damned, you know? C'est la vie. And Mike. There may be no stranger "bromance." Despite the fact that we have only hung out in person maybe four times total, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say I have talked to you more than anyone else this year. Disturbingly parallel. Whatever happens with one of us, I can know without question the other has either already done it or will be doing it shortly. Lulz, indeed.

Last and, most certainly, not least, the past five weeks -- I mean. What can I say? Simply amazing. Thanks, "Lola." Always.

-BG

The Single Life

Here's a fact about me that is both absolutely stunning and absolutely true: I've never really been single.

Over the past 14 years, I've been engaged (twice) more often than I've been single for longer than a couple weeks (once). I'll pause here for that to sink in. LULZ.

Yeah, so THAT happened.

I've had relationships, and those relationships have ended; but, more often than not, I slid into another relationship within a couple of weeks -- if that long, in some cases. I like to joke that I'm a serial monogamist.

Casual dating and sleeping around has never really been something I've been particularly interested in or adept at making work. I'm much more suited to serious relationships. And I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that, especially since I'm aware of it, and I take steps to try to manage it haha. But it's definitely how I am.

The ex-girl and I split some months back now, and a strange thing happened to me. I was consumed, not with finding another girlfriend, but with getting my shit straight. I'm sure that's a normal reaction for most people, but in high school and college, I always just wanted to find another girlfriend. It was always my gut instinct.

And as Rob Gordon says in High Fidelity, "I've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and, frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains."

I mean, seriously, brief aside: how brilliant is that movie/book? Love it.

So yeah. There you go. Previously, after a break-up, all I really wanted was to find a girlfriend because I didn't particularly like being alone. But really, who does?

Like I said, this time felt different. For the first time, I absolutely didn't care about talking to girls or trying to go on dates or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I gave it a few half-hearted attempts over the past few months, but it became clear I wasn't into it. I had no interest in trying to date someone else. At all.

Perhaps it was my gut having its first good idea since I was 14 years old. I don't know.

I know what you're probably thinking. This is a post to convince others (and myself) that it's OK I don't have a girlfriend and I promise everything is OK and please believe me!

Couldn't be further from the truth, and I believe I have a convincing argument.

First of all, it's been the unanimous opinion of every friend I've seen recently that they cannot believe how happy and energetic and full of life I am now. Exact words are usually something like, "Wow, the difference between talking to you now and talking to you four or five months ago is incredible. You seem happier than I've ever seen you." Four or five months ago was pretty much the lowest point I'd ever been at, if you'll recall.

That tells me everything I've been working so hard on these past few months has been totally and completely worth it and successful.

Second, spending serious time working out and watching what I eat has been one of the best things I could have ever done for myself. Look, obviously I'm not saying I didn't do these things because I was in a relationship. That's nonsensical.

But would I have felt the same urge, desire and motivation to push myself as hard as I continue to push myself if I were NOT single? I'm not sure. I do know that being single gave me a LOT more time to spend lifting weights, walking Allie and running.

And let's be honest, you can say "hey sweetheart, how do you feel about chicken breast, steamed veggies and tuna for dinner?" only so often. When you're with someone, even when you cook together, it's SOOO easy to fall into unhealthy eating habits. I have had my share of that. Plus, there's going out to dinner and dates and etc. You know how it goes.

I needed to be extreme with my food choices for a while to instill good habits and discipline. I'm in a much better place with that now. I make much smarter decisions with food now than I ever have. I eat less food now than I ever have. God I'm so happy with this haha. I'm just so much healthier than I've ever been, it's ridiculous.

Next, going out with my friends as much as I have been. Again, I'm NOT saying I couldn't have gone out with my friends when I wasn't single. That's illogical. Of course I could have. But you know. Let's be reasonable. There are only so many times when you can say, "hey sweetheart, I'm going downtown to drink with my friends three times this week, cool?" I'm just saying. That would probably wear thin on ANY significant other after a while, and probably understandably so. But at the same time, I needed it. Big time.

As I (jokingly, of course) said to Nick in Raleigh, life can be a lot of fun when you don't have to worry about disappointing and/or embarrassing a girl haha. That's clearly NOT serious, but you know what I'm saying. It's probably not as easy to go home and have the following exchange, "So what did you do tonight?" "Oh you know. Danced like an ass for four hours."

Finally, did you read what I wrote up there? I've been engaged twice, and I haven't been single since I was approximately 15 years old. I think some time to myself to figure out my own shit was a little overdue, don't you?

As my friend Ashlee said to me, it's hard to find out who you are when you find yourself as half of a whole for so long. Well said! And true!

Before this summer, the longest I'd been single since I was 15 years old was less than six weeks. And even then, it wasn't really six weeks of being single because we never stopped speaking, hanging out or living together. So you know. There's that.

I have never taken the opportunity to look at myself, to improve on the things I felt needed improvement or to figure out what I truly want. I am 29 years old, friends. I'm a grown-ass man, dawg. It's been well past time for a while now for a little self-analysis and reflection.

I'm not saying I have it all figured out. It's only been, what, four months? But I have a much better perspective on myself. I'm in SUCH a better place mentally and physically right now. It's difficult even to comprehend where I was back in April.

The improvements I've made since then -- I mean, wow. There really aren't words for it. My energy level is through the ROOF. So much so, in fact, that J. Mike referred to dancing all night as "pulling a BG." I'm nearly at my goal weight of 180 pounds (from an all-time high of almost 230 pounds), which will only be a pit-stop on my way to 170 or 175 or even 165. Who knows.

I am comfortably running at least four miles three times a week. And I'm running five miles on the weekends. I made ridiculous improvements on my 5k time a few weeks ago. I'm now looking toward making similarly significant progress on my half-marathon time of 2:19:51.

I've been setting personal bests in one-mile, two-mile, three-mile and four-mile times almost daily for weeks now. I've almost got my one-mile time under eight minutes. My two-mile time is hovering right around 16 or 17 minutes. I recorded my best-ever four-mile time last week before I went to Raleigh.

I said GODDAMN it feels good to be a gangsta.

So. All of that is to say this: the past four months or so. Being single, being alone by my own designs and of my own volition for once and NOT trying to hop into another relationship is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Like I said, I don't have it all figured out. But I have a much greater understanding of who I am and what I want -- things I'd never really bothered to consider before. All that running allows for a lot of reflection and thought.

Now, all of THAT is to say this: I think it's finally time. I feel like I'm ready to see other people and finally put all of my rediscovered awesomeness to good use, no? Although my new perspective on things is also most definitely telling me we'll take things slow this time as compared to, say, every other time in my life. Lulz.

It's been four months, and I've spent a hell of a lot of time working on myself. Feels like a good time to put myself back out there.

Let's go, friends. LET. US. GO.

-BG

That Just Happened Part 2

Did you somehow miss the exciting first part of the story of my weekend in Raleigh? Check it out here before reading on.

So! When we left off with the story, we were turning in around 5 a.m. We'd all had quite a bit to drink, although I quickly learned Nick and Mike are extreme lightweights. Mike had four beers and was nearly unconscious. Nick didn't have much more and was worried about feeling awful Saturday morning.

What in the world guys!

Anyway, 9 a.m. rolled around on Saturday and I was UP and ready to go. I walked Allie and got ready, and then I waited to get up with Nick so we could gameplan for the rest of the day. Predictably, it took a while. Weaksauce.

We finally rendezvoused at lunchtime. The game was at 6 p.m., so we had plenty of time to grab some food and tailgate for quite a while.

This seems like a good place for the story of acquiring tickets. Obviously, I'm no longer a student. But for a while, I still had my student ID, so I could just find a student to get me a ticket, and flash my student ID to get in. Well, first of all, I no longer am up to speed on the whereabouts of my student ID. Second, I know fewer and fewer students every year.

When I told Nick I was coming back, I asked him to please get me a ticket with everyone who'd be going (and we had a fairly substantial group). He said it wouldn't be a problem. That was last weekend.

Monday rolls around. Tuesday rolls around. Nothing. Hey Nick, ticket update? "We're totally fine." Nick, I need some reassurance about this. I'm driving an awfully long way to get to this game. "I have the best reassurance ever for you: SOUTH ALABAMA (meaning it shouldn't be hard to find tickets to this game because of the team we were playing)." Nicholas, that does not help me.

He kept telling me it would be fine and not to worry. So I stopped asking. Asking wasn't going to get me anywhere anyway. We didn't have the tickets in our hand until 2 p.m. on SATURDAY -- the day of the game. In retrospect, I'm glad I stopped asking about it haha. Truthfully, if I still lived in Raleigh, I wouldn't have cared about getting the tickets on that timetable. But all the driving made me nervous.

Anyway, we met up and headed to Wendy's for lunch, where I got a grilled chicken sandwich (because I'm watching what I eat...lulz), fries and SWEET TEA, which I can gleefully report was readily available everywhere. We recounted the stories from Friday night and filled in the newest member of the team, Chad, who replaced John in the car with Nick, Mike and me.

Chad was instantly a fan of everything that happened and couldn't wait to come out with us Saturday night.

As we got closer to the stadium, we realized we had neither tickets nor beer for tailgating. Nick and Mike went to meet the guy who was selling us the tickets. Chad and I hopped out of the car at the intersection of Hillsborough and Blue Ridge. There's a gas station across the street there, so we went and bought beer. It was kind of like a game of Frogger with us trying to cross the street.

Well, Mike and his four beers from the night before made it impossible for him to finish more than ONE beer at the tailgate. Nick did a little better, but he was also not feeling well from the night before.

We met up with Justin and a few of Chad's friends. And one of Mike's friends, Eileen, who was out with us the night before, came to tailgate even though she had no ticket for the game, nor did she plan on acquiring a ticket to the game. Also, she walked three miles just to tailgate with us for a few hours. Hardcore. Major props. Then again, tailgating at N.C. State is kind of a way of life. Nothing comes close.

Tailgated for a few hours. It was relatively chilly and light rain fell almost the entire time. My long-sleeved State shirt proved to be a brilliant decision. Justin was totally clutch, too. He brought a small HD TV with a box that connects to the cigarette lighter in the car, so we got to watch football while we tailgated without a ridiculous generator situation.

No point in talking about the game. Check out the ESPN game recap for that if you want. It was raining and sloppy, and we won by more than 20. A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL. Here's a photo I took from where we were standing. I really love our stadium. Man.

We didn't bother going to our seats. Another friend of ours, Dennis (D-Burt) has season tickets and NEVER sits in his seats. He and his buddy Doug just stand in the concourse near the big scoreboard. It's actually a pretty solid view, so why not? This way, it doesn't matter where your tickets are. You end up with the people you want to be with anyway. Oh! and I took a video of the team entrance with my blackberry, so pardon me if it sucks, but here it is anyway.



While at the game, I ran into J. Mike, another Tech sports alum who we hadn't seen in a long time. We agreed it was necessary for him to come out with us that night.

Got back after the game, showered and got ready. I didn't want to wait for Nick to go back to Durham to do the same and then come back, so I cabbed downtown to meet Laura, and I actually got to see Danielle and Adam for the first time in like two years. I think the last time I saw them was the very first Bark for Life event we did the day before my half-marathon. So Oct. 2009. Crazy. They lived in Spain for like nine months. Kick ass.

So we met at Mecca, which I'm told is the oldest restaurant in Raleigh. Awesome! Seriously, any place that has a framed portrait of FDR over the bar is A-OK by me. Had a drink there and then went to meet Laura and her friends again at Busy Bee. I've heard a lot about Busy Bee from friends in Raleigh, and it was pretty awesome. Tough to beat $2 cans of High Life. Also, I had a swedish fish shot for the first time ever. It really does taste like swedish fish. That could get dangerous.

Nick, Chad and their friends arrived, and we just kinda sat around at Busy Bee for a while. I feel like we probably wasted too much time there, but it was fine. Around 1 a.m., Nick and I looked at each other and pretty much said, "I just wanna dance," at exactly the same time. It was getting late. We needed to get moving. Literally.

Laura, who is pretty much a hipster haha, said we had two options. There's a place where the people would look like Nick and me (The Hive, where we were Friday night), but there's a huge line to get in; or a place where the people would look like Laura (Neptunes), but there probably wouldn't be a line to get in.

We chose the latter, and got in after not too long. Laura was right haha. J. Mike was waiting for us there, and I'm not sure it was possible for us to visually stick out more than we did. But the music, man. The music. It was kind of a 60s/Motown/funk kind of thing, and it was just unbelievable. It was exactly the kind of vibe I was looking for that night. Seriously amazing.

Laura described it best when she said it was like a scene out of Dirty Dancing. You couldn't really dance fast to it. You just had to groove (and yes, I know how white I sound right now. Suck it.). God I just loved every second of that. We didn't have much time to dance there, but I really made the most of it, I think.

J. Mike had the incredible foresight to take a picture of it. It's a little blurry because, well, I was dancing and it was dark. But it's too good not to share.

It was around this time when Justin, Nick and J. Mike began to wonder how many energy drinks I must have had given how hard we went the night before, how late it currently was and how much energy I was displaying on the dance floor haha. They couldn't accept that I just had that much energy pretty much all the time. But I did, and I do. Apparently, they all feel like I should spend time being in energy drink commercials. I'll take it!

Anyway. Excellent night. Lots of drinks, friends I hadn't seen in a long time -- great success. Must be done again soon. Saturday night was mild compared to Friday night. I was asleep by 3:30 or so.

Woke up the next day, feeling good as always. I took Allie to a dog park downtown, where she promptly sat down next to me or under a table. Allie is one of the smartest dogs I've ever encountered, but I really think she fundamentally does not understand the purpose of the dog park. Or maybe she just uses it for mental stimulation. Or maybe she just doesn't like dogs who are strangers. I don't know.

She had two beagle friends when she was younger, Ella and Lady, and she always loved running around and playing with them. She loved playing with our family dog, Spunky, too. Who knows. After the dog park, I went to Laura's house and hung out and had a few drinks with her and her roommate. Allie and Laura's dog Rainer got to run around their yard some more before we hopped in the car for the 4-5 hour drive back.

I made the brilliant decision to call ahead to Lilly's and pick up a pizza on my way out of town. Great success on that one. Thankfully, there was no traffic, and we made it back in a decent time. SO great. Thanks to everyone, seriously. Amazing weekend.

And that's all she wrote for my weekend in Raleigh. I'm sure I've left out some things I did not intend to leave out, so feel free to let me know via messages or comments or whatever. All in all, it was a perfect weekend.

I couldn't have asked for a better time seeing all my friends, and I absolutely must get back soon to do it again.

Also, standing invite to everyone to come to D.C. whenever you can, and we'll make sure we go just as hard here as we did in Raleigh. Man. Just awesome. LET US GO.

-BG

That Just Happened: A Raleigh Recap

I spent the later half of last week in North Carolina, visiting family and friends -- Wednesday through Friday morning in Charlotte and the remainder of the weekend in Raleigh.

Charlotte was excellent, of course. I got to see my parents and some of my oldest friends. I got to rock out on my drums a good bit. It was, generally, solid.

There really are not a whole lot of exciting details to say about that though haha. It was an excellent few days, and I'm excited to go back next month for Kirk's wedding.

Raleigh, on the other hand. Whew. As my texts, blogs, Facebook status updates and Tweets said, I was expecting a ridiculous weekend. I never could have imagined just how ridiculous it would be. I'll talk about many things here, but suffice it to say there is also quite a bit I will never mention in a public forum. Ever. That just happened.

This may require two parts. We'll see. Here we go!

So when I left my apartment on Wednesday, it was 85 degrees. Relatively hot. Humid. You know. The usual summer weather. When I woke up in Charlotte on Friday, I discovered Fall had arrived overnight.

That's fine and all. I like Fall. Well, I love Fall. But I was not wardrobily prepared. And also, I don't know if you're aware or anything, but I've lost a shit-ton of weight over the past few months -- 42 pounds to be exact. I haven't worn jeans since I was a fat-ass. They no longer fit! WAY too big for me. They'd fall down after taking barely a few steps, and the belt caused such ridiculous bunching-up it was just time for new jeans.

When I got to Raleigh on Friday, my first stop was the Go Pack store to buy a long-sleeved State shirt for the game on Saturday, which was supposed to be cold and rainy (it was, more on that later), and my second stop was the mall to buy jeans.

I bought jeans with a 34-inch waist. Let's. Go. I haven't been able to wear jeans that size in six or seven years.

Anyway, so I got situated and I was ready to go. I heard from Nick, and we made our plans. We planned to hit this bar called Foundation because our friend Laura works there. The group started as Nick, his roommate John, Mike and me. Mike, as I've mentioned, has become a close friend of mine through talking on Gchat every day, but this was the first time we ever got to hang out in person. Lulz.

We got our hugs and greetings out of the way and hopped into the car to go downtown. It was drizzling a little bit, and it was not really warm at all. We got downtown and found parking, and I called Laura to find out where Foundation is because none of us had ever been there.

I don't want to cause trouble, so I'll just say Laura was unavailable to hang out on Friday night haha :-). Mike helped us find Foundation anyway with his iPhone, and we decided we'd order a round or two of drinks before heading to the next stop.

I had a Manhattan (great success!), and we all took these shots called Carolina Sunsets. I couldn't tell you what's in them to save my life, so there you go. Some of Mike's friends from work showed up, and we had a pretty solid party going now.

It was then we agreed it was time to dance.

A brief aside about dancing: I had NO IDEA how much I loved dancing until very recently. I mean, from my stories from my cousin's wedding a couple years ago and various random nights out, obviously I knew I enjoyed it, but this was another level.

We made our way to The Hive around 11 or so. It was still pretty early, so it wasn't very full. We immediately went over to the dance floor and commanded the area until almost 2 a.m. It was beyond insane. Lots of drinks -- beers, whiskey, shots, let's go -- lots of fun.

Friday night really helped me realize how insane my energy level is now. Some of my friends have been commenting lately on how I seem to have a ridiculous amount of happy/fun/positive energy. I mean, is there any doubt it's completely tied to losing 42 pounds and working out six days a week?

I mean, we didn't stop dancing for three solid hours. I danced in the middle of a circle on the dance floor. What in the world? WHO AM I? So incredibly awesome. I really have to say, Nick, John, Mike and I know how to break it down. It was nuts.

A theme of the weekend seemed to be various people marveling at my energy level haha. And how they couldn't believe I was able to keep it up for as long as I did and at such high levels (THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID). But seriously, I was completely fired up all night, and I couldn't get enough dancing.

So John and Mike disappeared around 1:30 to find some other friends who were out. Nick and I stayed to continue dancing and drinking with some girls Nick had started chatting up who were in the aforementioned circle with us on the dance floor. We were under the impression Mike and John were going to bring the friends back to The Hive to continue dancing until it closed.

When it became apparent that wasn't going to happen, Nick and I wandered outside into the rain to find wherever Mike and John were. I think they were at Raleigh Times. Anyway, obviously neither Nick nor I knew where that was. So we asked this random guy named Wayne where to go, and he totally pointed us in the exact opposite direction.

Thanks a lot, Wayne.

As we were walking, we encountered a bachelorette party full of girls from Wilson. They were looking for their stretch Hummer limo. We ran across the street to ask them if they knew were Raleigh Times was (obviously not, since they were from Wilson, though we didn't know that when we decided to ask them). Instead, a few of them ran up to me, grabbed me and asked me to tell this creepy guy to leave them alone because he was following them despite repeated requests for him to stop.

Oh lord.

I don't particularly remember saying anything to the guy, but he left them alone. It must be because Nick and I are such a strikingly intimidating pair. Ha. Anyway, the girls then insisted on Nick and I following them to the Hummer to go to Wilson with them. Like you do.

For reasons completely passing understanding, we did not get in the Hummer. Instead, we got chili dogs. Again, like you do.

We eventually found Mike and John after nearly 30 minutes of walking around in the rain downtown. We were able to take shelter inside, but it was well after 2 a.m., and the bar was closed. Fail.

We left and found the car and ended up having another beer and hanging out at a friend's house for an hour or so after that. The fog of "you better believe I'm not disclosing these details on a public forum on the Internet" prevents me discussing this night further.

But oh boy. That just happened.

We made it back around 4:45 or 5 a.m. and hit the sack so we could do it again on Saturday. We had to tailgate and check out some State football before going out again Saturday night. It was going to be a long day!

That'll do it for part 1. Part 2 later!

God. This weekend was just so, so unbelievably awesome haha. Let's GO.

-BG