Find me at Alex@Kainless.com

Observation 207

I had planned on writing this a couple of weeks ago but oddly enough I just couldn’t pull the time or focus for it. Someone keeps distracting me..

“Looks over at kitten that is now… a cat named Pez!”

So Quarantine life!!! It’s finally become a thing everyone is focused on. In truth I can’t say much has changed for me since this entire thing started at the start of…March I want…to say..So it’s been what?….Two months…and what I have I learned?

What place do I even start? Okay so I had plans to see my older brother in the great state of Texas. That would be the first place that I can say my plans changed. I didn’t get to see my brother and even on the 3rd of May i’m still upset about that. Why? First I wanted see my brother whom I don’t think I get to see enough and very rarely get the opportunity (A word that will come up a great deal in this post) to have the time to see him. He works a job with crazy hours, I also do the same. So time was limited and it could have been a great time HAD THIS FUCKING VIRUS not done what it did.

At the time the numbers of deaths and cases kept rising and I felt it was ill advised to do any type of traveling. Funny to note… that the following Wednesday all of NY went into Lock down mode. They didn’t stop travel but ADVISED.. Against it. Which seems to have become a thing.

Every media source that I have in my life. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Discord all focused on this situation. People stayed home and continued to stay away from each other which is still .. currently.. in play. The problem or interesting part of it all was that I would come to find Very little..changed.. for me personally.

Not gonna lie as a almost 37 year old Adult my life before all this was pretty isolated in terms of what we gauge as communicable. I come to find out that this guy “ME” who started a job at 7.10 $/hr in 2004…Right out of High School is ESSENTIAL!! So what does that mean? Several things… I become the Test Rat for doing everything that Scientist warned us NOT TO DO .. But had to do because of the following..

Rent is still due.. Government never suspended it..So talks to my Landlord went as following.. If the Mortgage companies want the money..Rent is still due.. Bills are still due.. Credit card debit is still due.. FOOD.. still need to eat.. TOILET PAPER.. ODDLY ENOUGH.. still needed.. So to sum this all up FOR ME.. I still needed to work.

It went from .. Keep everything clean at night.. tooooooo .. No more Over Nights “We don’t make enough money to merit the hours”.. toooooooo… Work 40 hours during the day.. just keep everything clean.. tooooooo.. Plastic Glass between us and the customers… Sanitizer for hands every 20 or so minutes..Wash yo hands.. toooooooooooo.. Wear a mask to work… Lose 1$ a dollar an hour because you aren’t working night shift.. BUT GAIN.. 2$ an hour for hazard pay ONLY During the month of April.. Now extended tooooooo.. MAY..”So really just 1$ extra and hour…”..Gain all Incentive pay because we can’t be shopped because they can’t send out NINJAS toooo watch us.. but continuing doing what needs to be done regardless…

It has been great weather TWICE.. since this all started… No one in town on those days gives a fuck about the pandemic. People want to celebrate birthdays, ride boats, go fishing, and so on.. and who gives a fuck about who gets sick.. LIVE ONCE.. YOLO… Whatever the fuck that means!?…

How…is this.. Affecting you Alexander?… The good thing is I get to sleep at night… I guess.. Family is holding together nicely online.. Which is probably the highest of Highlights in all of this. Great concerts and community events online.. The Internet has proven to be a very cool place to be if you are someone who enjoys music and art. FINALLY CUT MY HAIR!! Finally got the shifts the way I want them.. 4 DAYS A week instead of 5.. Played the new Doom Eternal.. Doom 64 got released.. “Info on all that nonsense is here !! https://videogamesalexander.wordpress.com/“

The Negatives?… Every day I could get sick.. Im tip top now.. but that could change because people still think it’s more important to drink and play FUCKING LOTTERY .. than to isolate themselves. People have become more hostel.. “myself included”.. Dumb behavior has tripled “just from my own observations”… some don’t wear masks.. some just don’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves.. and yes I deal with those people.. Some are in total denial about the situation.. “it’s not real.. ignorance ignorance …ignorance”.. IQs are WITHOUT QUESTION..DOWN… Learning a great deal bout survival.. oh and no new comics are being made until this is over.. “THAT SUCKS PERSONALLY”… Can’t do my own laundry, Food shopping online is completely booked! Can’t see really see my family in a hug and have a beer kinda way.. I might actually take up drinking after all this is over.. and maybe on a good head start to do that more often now..

If ever a time in my life that I felt like ..maybe I SHOULD be doing drugs.. NOW IS THE TIME.. …now I say that because I have still TO THIS DAY.. NEVER DONE ANY DRUGS.. short of drinking with my brother and a hand full of people I call friends.. “Kinda a personal note I just thought to add in here”..

I am working on reorganizing my home.. “that’s a plus”.. am working on making new music.. “another plus!!”.. Keeping in contact with family which was never really an issue before …is still.. Not an issue.. Short of I work during the day now so .. it’s just odd for everyone..

I am tired of the situation.. my patents are at an all time LOW..just.. keeping my head high and hoping for the best for now..

Observation 206

I wake up and the first thing I always think “Every time”.. is what time is it? I take note of the time I went to sleep and the time I wake up. On average I can say I sleep 4 hours here and 4 hour there. Very rarely my body says Nope time to get more sleep. Maybe at best once every three months I will sleep for a straight 13 hours.

I took the last week off of work so I could go see my brother. Unfortunately those plans got cancelled and I was forced to stay home the entire time. I recognized a few things, Caught up with some tasks I wanted to catch up with here. Did a great deal more sleeping than I thought I was going too. Overall just relaxed and gave myself time to think about what I was doing with my life.

I can say with 100% certainty that I am a happy guy. My goals and my accomplishments are all tasks I feel like I can accomplish. I don’t have an ego about it I just have clear understanding that some stuff is in my control and some isn’t. While I would like to have more control over everything I know that no matter how much money I make or what Job I am doing somethings just aren’t going to go my way. THAT IS FATE…

Being discouraged was never a thing I thought much about. Everything in life has a point of view. Some people are going to look at me and see a guy who should want more or should be driving to do bigger things. Fact is I never really saw the point of pushing against what I can’t control. What exactly does that mean?

I know what it is to be sick. I have been sick in the past and I try really hard not to be sick in the future. I follow the steps and the rules as I understand them. I understand will power and the drive to get past the most uneven, unfair, and unjustified situations. It takes a serious mind to get those accomplishments done. I know the questions that will follow.. The why?

Why am I sick? Why does this hurt? Why me? What do I need to do to get out of this? It’s very much like playing chess. You need to understand the rules and put yourself into the best position possible as you see the opportunities open up. Now keep in mind you make those Opportunities by choosing to do what you do. However knowing each thought out position is important.

Getting back to how I started this.. Time comes a role piece in just starting the day because it’s a understanding point of what was done and what needs to be done between the now and the later. If you put yourself into the position to be around people at this point a number of things should be clear.

People are always going to be scared of what isn’t known to them. Some will be braver than others. Some don’t have control because the rules are made and nothing is going to change that. If you follow the rules and push to be elevated by those constructs you can accomplish anything. Thinking outside the box is important but knowing what the box is made of will get you out of it.

I have a very good sense of my future and I understand all to well my past. I fight hard to get everything I have. Emotionally and Physically everything gets tiring and you need to learn to rest. It is not weak to say you need more time or to say this is good enough for now I will figure out more later.

Observation 205

So far 2020 has been a lesson on my fears. Perhaps things have been far to good for my liking and this is just a touch of reality that was needed for me. I build a routine on my life and how things are supposed to go.

Wake up, work, do stuff, sleep and repeat

Yet what I have come to understand recently is that fear comes in two different categories. Fearing something cause you have a bases for it and fear something because you don’t know what will happen. The first one started this year with me.

I Started the year with the fear of my health. Having to go to the doctors for blood work. Now this doesn’t sound like anything serious at all but the lesson came regardless. The last two times I gave blood I almost passed out and fainted. For anyone who has ever done that or experienced it they can tell you IT SUCKS!!.. Also this is something new that my body does because either I was dehydrated the last two times I went or cause I hadn’t eaten and gotten enough sleep.

So this last time I learned from the fear.. SLEEP!! EAT!! DRINK LOTS OF WATER BEFORE GIVING BLAH… DUH!

That felt more like a internal thing and honestly looking back on it now much of that had to do with my health. This also brings us to the current state of fear I have. Which funny enough has to do my health also. However this has more to do with outside influence and less to do with experience.

Now at this point i’m not going to say the word everyone is talking about right because frankly i’m sick of hearing about it. However I will say it could potentially affect my lungs which has been in the past a problem I was born with. If I think about it now I am 100% sure I will have to face that problem again in the future maybe some 50 or 40 years down the line but still.. DOWN THE LINE…

I would rather not think about it right now. Yet it does hover around me the idea that somethings a person simply can’t change. Mortality isn’t something I really thought about at all during the ages of 1-27. Something changed after I turned 27 and it hit me pretty hard with a reality that things HAD TO CHANGE.

Eating habits, Looking after my activities, Routines and so on all became things I had to actually become self aware of. Which is kinda strange because before that it was eating Reeses cups and riding a bike to see my friends in Brooklyn.

Now it’s Leafy Greens, Yogurts, Fruits, Meats “In moderation” and MAYBE a Reeses cup once a month if I am feeling OH SO RISKY!!… It’s kinda odd how things happen but I guess that’s just life. The good, the bad and the between you are supposed to fall into.

I also must say I find it very interesting how during everything I have just now started to notice how Social Media has actually taken a part of my life. Don’t get me wrong I love twitter, Facbook “it helps connect my family”, and so on but yea.. Very strange that I never really even noticed how it happened. Normally I just observe things I enjoy.. Comics, Music, Video Games, NAKED LADIES AND SO ON!!! So yea the idea that while following all that I have some how become so aware of the world outside my door has me at a interesting pass I guess…

Perhaps a future Topic… Moderation needs to come to play with that also..

Observation 204

The mind is a funny thing to me. Personally I am always overthinking everything I do. So when it comes to something I DON’T want to do that I know I NEED to do my mind almost always takes a turn for the worst! I don’t really know what it is about thinking over the worst possibilities of things but I have as far as I can remember always been the one to do that.

It’s helped in some cases because 9 out of 10 times I prepare for the worst so in the case that the best thing happens I often am happily surprised. Recently “Today” I FINALLY gave my blood for the check up test that I really needed to get done.. “IT WAS OVER DUE BY 5 YEARS!!”….but what I FIND funny about myself is that in the weeks before the test I had this feeling in my stomach of total fear of concept. Not so much the blood test but the idea that I might pass out and how horrible I would feel after it all.

I pretty sure it was 99% fear of not wanting to feel great. Currently not even an hour after it’s done.. I feel AMAZING!! I mean yes I have to wait for the test results now but even for the sake of lets say something is wrong just the fact that I KNOW the why makes me overwhelmed with strength. I understand my body that much better now and my mind can be put at rest for all time on the concept of not knowing THE WHY!!?

For weeks the why was.. WHY THE HELL DID I ALMOST FAINT TWICE!!!? So as people do these days I googled the problem. Why do I faint while giving blood? The answers came as pure logic.

LACK OF SLEEP, LACK OF WATER, LACK OF FOOD!!

So I spent the last few weeks just keeping to a routine of drinking enough water, getting about as much sleep as I could and of course eating the right stuff for TODAY. Went with my mother “WHO IS THE BEST ON EARTH!” got it done in less than an hour and now here I am typing this nonsense out…

Of course I knew the feeling of completion would be the best “Which it is!”. It feels like I solved a really hard puzzle or finished something that took me weeks to figure out. No greater High!…to my knowledge.. but what I find the most interesting is that state of mind before all this. Why does my mind work the way it does? Why do I think the way I do? What the hell was it all about?

I think the biggest answer to all of it was the concept that I didn’t know. I feared because I wasn’t sure of the answer. In this life I am so sure of so many things but having something out of my control that I wasn’t sure of was really twisting my mind into a very strange place. It really makes me want to push myself to take risks. Not like..anything dangerous.. but to work into new ideas.. New Concepts.. perhaps see what the worst case senior could be…but without putting myself into danger.. Like how far can I push my body? Working out… how far can I run!!? How much weight can I actually lift “SAFELY”…. what are my limits?? How many Books can I read in the span of a year.. a month.. a week!!… So many things… so many things..

Observation 203

The older I get the more I become aware of the things can not do anymore. Working nights for 10 + years takes it’s tolls. Humans aren’t naturally nocturnal so I have had to change a few things in diet and how I treat myself.

Human maintained mind set both physically and spiritually. Depression sets in easy cause a chemical lack of vitamin D. So I started taking fish oil to maintain my heart and cholesterol. Also not bad for muscle pain. Ginko biloba for memory and a probiotic to keep it all clean. I keep trying to set myself up with a workout routine but my ability to keep to it is less than motivated.

I rarely go to the gym but have a exercise bike and some weights at home that help also. It’s funny cause while living in Brooklyn I rode my bike all over and never noticed the benefits. Living here I walk more but it’s not nearly the same.

The processes of aging becomes a topic I think about more and more. Time goes faster the older I get or at least the prospective of it. I have for the first time in awhile a blank state on things around me. I am finding myself surprised but what’s happening or happened.

Yet I still feel only slightly older mentally. All the things I loved are still all the things I love now. Music, comics, television and even my faith all remain the same. I wonder if that will change.

Observation 202

Recently I have been holding a feeling of dread. My mind has been focused on my health. It’s odd for me because really I feel great. Aside from occasional heart burn brought on by just being older I my mind has been scared. Perhaps seeing my sibling in the hospital, my mother being sick and likely cause I reduced the sugar in my life by more than 50%. Things are changing in my mind.

I set up an appointment for a check up on the 10th cause that was the soonest I could get. I am sure everything is fine but something in my mind is telling me to worry. It’s really my nature to do so. I worry about everything but really I was reading about how people whom drop sugar tend to go into this odd withdrawal. It makes your moods change dramatically. I think that has a big part to do with it.

On the plus side I am working out more and I do physically feel soooo much better now. I feel strong and capable. Just these moods suck. Working at night it does take its toll on everything I do. Chemicals in the brain react differently and rest while I know I don’t do it very well I found becomes welcome when I can. I am at the point in my life that I need to go for yearly check ups. It’s how aging works.

Advanced technology can be useful for age. I can think of a number of people whom wouldn’t be here right now if not for the 2020 state of things.i keep in mind that some day it will be 2040 and how far we will come I am sure it will be unthinkable to me. Yet the obstacles are still around me.

Political plays on the price of life and death. I have hope that the right people will be loud and logical about the whys.

Observation 201

I have this strange thing I do and I only recently started to think about it but it involves moving stuff around my home. I don’t believe in Feng Shui or anything like that but it’s something I have been doing since forever ago. I might be from having siblings and sharing rooms with them. It might be just because I find it relaxing to organize stuff “I know I am weird”. Yet it is something that I often find myself doing.

Now I have lived on my own in 3 different homes “Not Counting the Girlfriends”. With each home I have had I set things up in such a way that it’s easy to plan stuff out. Living Room, Kitchen, Bathroom and Bed Room are really a basic thing people just naturally do. However the set up of those things are the beginning of the year is a funny thing I tend to change normally 2 or 3 times a year.

I am also a big collector of just random Nerdy things. Comic Books, Funko Pops, Action Figures, Anything related to Mortal Kombat, Movies and Music of course. So in adding things and subtracting things I tend to find organizing is kinda a benefit to my personality in that I know exactly where everything is or at least I have an idea.

I have known people who can walk into a place, Throw clothing on the floor and throw themselves also on a bed or love seat. That stuff will stay in the place it is at for days. Said people will never be bothered by it until they have to gather it all to have it be cleaned “Just as a personal note it’s no one I currently know”. I always found it interesting to see that because you could ask the same person how do you find anything and that person will know exactly the place the stuff was thrown.

Now I think it has something to do with how the brain organizes thoughts. I think if you mix those types of people “Yes they drive each other crazy”.. But you also come into the position that the chaos can create a very cool conversation for how it’s organized. Like think about how any person can start a conversation.

Me: Hello.. How are you?

Person 1: I am good just thinking about Food…

Me: What kinda food?

Person 1: Something with Toast.. Oh hey did you see the game last night?

END CONVERSATION

See how it could have stayed on topic but instead it goes from one topic to another thus keeping the conversation going about random things yet also opening doors to go in and out of.

I am finding that at the start of the year things have a habit of starting up and shutting down ideas and goals to come.

Observation 200

As an Observer of everything around me I have come to understand that to move forward sometimes you need to reflect and Move back. So as this is post 200 I would like to move really far back to 1983.

This was the first place I can remember. Everything was so much bigger but to be fair I was so much smaller also. It was the first place I ever lived and from what I can remember it was great. I have great parents and great siblings and while I don’t write much about my personal life on here I do often think about who I am and why I am the way I am. A big part of that comes from the people whom raised me. Who taught me right from wrong. Who taught me how to deal with the ups and the downs. It all started in this building so I wanted to see some 37 years later if I could find it again. This picture is proof that I could find it.

While the area isn’t even close to what I remember it being the building still stands and I am happy to see at least that much hasn’t changed. I am sure other families are being raised in this building like mine with the idea of having a great life. I am sure it’s still a comfortable place to live. Yet I wonder what type of lifestyle a person NOW must hold up to maintain such a place to live. I know it took hard work and a sense of direction to make it work. I just wonder how much that has changed in all these years?

This building was once a Public Library. I remember borrowing books on Elementary School projects. One specific book I remember borrowing was a book on drugs and poisons. It had a skull on the cover and I recall it scaring me to the point that I knew I was never going to ever take anything that a doctor or my mother didn’t give me that was a remotely drug related. It’s strange because I didn’t remember any of this until I saw that building again and the library being missing. Funny how things stick with you even 37 years later.

This was another very important place because this would be first place I ever played an Arcade game or bought a Piece of Chocolate. It was called Tommys. Lots of good memories come to mind about that place and it being the first convince store I ever really had any interest in going too I find it even more interesting that I remember anything about it at all.

Ditmas Ave was the first building block in my life. The introduction to my Family values and friendships came from such a small area in Brooklyn, New York and I don’t think I would be the person I am today without it. So let’s move forward some years and find another place in Brooklyn..

This is Avenue P which would be my 5th home but the one I would spend until recently the most time in my life in. Again with my parents and my siblings this would also be the last home that we all lived together in. I went thru my teenage years which constructively would be much of my personality in this part of my life. I learned a great deal in this home having Finished the 5th grade here.. All of JR High which was 6th – 8th Grade and part of High School here.

This was home and it was safe. We all spent many years in the back of this building Barbecuing, Celebrating Birthdays, I stored my Bike that my brother purchased for me in the back. I learned how to use my first computer here. First real girlfriend.. come to think of it.. First of many things happened to me in this home and while I reflect on it now I think it was very important that it all happen here.

Why? Cause this area was diverse. I learned that people are who they are here because of experience and because walking a block in any direction could bring you to a place so different from the next that it was important and yet unnoticed that we all have the same problems. Most of us no matter what religion or color or age are really just trying to get by. We all do things different and I think Brooklyn at the time while a melting pot of culture it also raised a particular type of person who thought the entire world was like that. Which coming up now at almost 38 years old I have learned that it’s not true. The world is much bigger but it’s also very very divided depending on the location.

My heart will always be in Brooklyn because of how anyone who worked hard and tried there best could come home and not think about any of those things. It was a question of taste and feeling… even in something as basic as a question like what do I want to eat.. ? Pizza?…Chines?.. Spanish?.. the list goes on and on.. and it worked for everything you could think of. The friends I had going to school were diverse. I had all types of cultures to learn from. Backgrounds of religion and so many different points of view to learn from. A was more of a question of comfort.

This was the first job I ever had. It was at the time a smoke shop and my mother got me the job. I was told to go and sweep, organize some shelves, doing some dusting, and stock some sodas. Pretty simple stuff and really I find it kinda funny how I am still doing the same job. At the time I didn’t have direction. Come to think of it even now I don’t have direction but I was comfortable with it then. SAME as I am now. I have grown and while that shop is no longer in business. I believe that everything does happen for a reason and that it’s time and place has set it’s purpose for me.

While not my home this was a place I spent a great deal of time at. My best friend whom my brother introduced me too lived in this building. In this place I would come to learn to love many of the strange things I do now from Horror films, to the type of music I listen to now. I have very fond memories of spending weekends at this place just being silly and myself. I learned how to keep an open eye on everything. To observe and always be aware of what others had in mind to do. I spent a great deal of time with my best friend just talking about everything. Building my own philosophy on life. It was important and it had to happen here.

Last stop on this trip is One of the happiest place I have ever been. I can’t explain the joy I got from seeing this building. I can’t express the smell, the feeling of the air, the sound and cold of it. It was Toys R Us.. sadly it’s gone. Yet even walking to this very location I came to a place that had nothing but great memories for me. It was family time for my father, Mother, Sister and Brother to gather at this place and know that a good time was going to be had. It wasn’t so much the purchasing of the toys as much as it was the thrill of getting into the car together. It was a feeling of wonder as to what we would find.

Some of the time we knew what we were looking for. Yet the younger me that was often didn’t. I just knew I wanted to go to see the building with the rainbow colored walls. The automatic doors and the feeling that everyone was happy to be in that place. Something good was in the air and it held that feeling still to this day. It was the experience that made it important not so much the why. We always went to this place when things were good. When we had it all or at least.. that’s what it felt like.

Observation 199

Every path goes someplace different in life. As an individual we choose too take steps in both the educated and predictable position or the more risky impulsive way. As someone who thinks far too much I can say I put that first one into play all too often.

We need to make discussions about what we are doing and how we can get to it. The biggest problem is we don’t often focus on the now. Are we yelling? Stressed over things we can’t currently change? What time is it? How do I physically feel? Is it causing a physical thought on what’s going to happen and what has happened?…

Muscles tense up and emotions can become overwhelmed with either positive or negative results. Finding a medium can be stress on it’s own but I have come to discover that by focusing on the now you internally can release a great deal of the negative. If by putting yourself into a position of focus in mind…

Close your eyes, hear the sound of your breathing, feel your heart beat and focus on the tips of your fingers. The mind will come to terms with the fact it isn’t hurt. Your thoughts are coming in at a speed that needs to slow down. Envision it like a page of paper. Each word has a speed. This is happening all right now. Take the time to perfect each letter..

Better..

Observation 198

I do feel like I am getting too old for some stuff in my life. However I can admit I don’t really hold any of that stuff as particularly important either. So I collect comics, toys, and other things mostly because I enjoy having the stuff not so much to just show off. It’s true my apartment looks like a 9 year old with way money lives there but it’s all a big part of my personality also.

If a person is confident and understands what’s important I think it becomes part of the environment to spread that personality as away of expression. Like I could see someone who is a musician having lots of that spread around the home. Someone who paints will naturally want to have those expressions cover the walls. Same with collectors of pretty much anything.

You can say a great deal about homes and the people who live in them by seeing what comfortable methods they use. It’s interesting to think about at least in a outside looking in kinda way.