Time to Adjust

You know, doing this whole transition thing is a trip. Going from cave-dweller to homo-sapien-with-apartment is a bigger bridge to cross than I previously thought. There was also something I didn’t account for. The joys of having an actual apartment can be quite addicting, and I’ll just single out a select few.

I have a cable modem, operating at 30Mbps. I’m a single man living in a basement with blazing fast internet service. So what does one think I could possibly get addicted to so quickly? The answer should be pretty easy to come up with:

Bring on Briana Banks and Lacey Duvalle

Yep. For the first two days of last week, I’ve been late to work exclusively because of porn. I honestly never thought about the endless amount of porn that I now have quick access to. Except for my printer, every wireless device connected to that internet has some form of porn on it. I’ve been a big fan of porn, but this is a bit much even for me. Back in my cave dwelling days, I had over 250GB of my 2TB hard drive dedicated to pornography. I’d download it off the internet connection at the bank job, take it home, find the ones I like the best, and then save them for a… “rainy day”. Now everything’s changed, but I think I got the hang of it now. I don’t need an entire world of porn. I don’t even need 250GB of it. I just have to find other things to do online than pornography. Once I start doing my stock and real estate research from home, that should end this hold that Xvideos has over me. It's already been 5 days since I've looked up internet porn, so I think I've weathered the storm.

The second joy that can become highly addictive is sleeping. I went from sleeping on a smelly full size futon to a queen sized bed. That’s a major difference, and I’m noticing how much easier it is to go to sleep nowadays. The problem, of course, is that I find it much harder to get out of bed. Like porn, this is something I'll get used to. I'll have to get used to having a good night's sleep and knowing when enough is enough. But porn and sleeping on a real bed pale in comparison to my next joy, the most addictive of all:

Civilization 5 for the PC

Video games. My Achilles' heel since 2nd grade. And now I have an Alienware computer in my home that can play any game known to man. I was late to work a couple days last week thanks to Civilizations 5, and I still have to buy a wireless game pad so that I can play emulators of old Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games. But strategy games like Alpha Centauri and Civilization are my main thing, and I can spend hours playing these kind of games. Curtailing this will be a huge undertaking, as I get a real pleasure out of building a society and making it strong. It reminds me so much of real estate!

In time, I'm sure I'll encounter more things that will make me love my apartment even more. I have a very addictive personality. It's like when I got my first paycheck from my very first job. I went out and spent the entire $47.86 on McDonald's food that my mom always refused to buy me when I was a kid. I find something I like and become obsessed with it. Then after a while, I realize that I have more important things to do and integrate the new obsession into my schedule. Sooner than later, the obsession subsides into a passing phase and I'm able to live a regular life again. This is my cycle, and I'm sure it will apply to my basement apartment as well. It's just gonna take time...

P.S.: You know, I still take my toothbrush and toothpaste to work to brush my teeth rather than do it at home now that I have a bathroom sink. I still take two empty water bottles with me to work even though I now have drinkable water in my kitchen. I still have the caveman’s approach to life and, after 6 and a half years, it’s embedded in me. I foolishly thought that, once my apartment was finished, that I’d instantly transform into this new guy with new habits. But old habits really do die hard, and I think it’ll take a few weeks before I have a new system for the way I do things at home.