Ah! It’s 8:08 AM! I’m just out of bed now even though I done set my alarm for 7:00 AM! Hurry, hurry, work, work work workworkhurrywork!

Nearly every single damn morning. How is it my body’s infernal clock isn’t used to this, huh? Makes not a lick of sense. Like most of us, I’ve had to wake up at a certain time that is earlier than I seem to want to wake up for about all of my life. Yet it’s still a struggle.

The onlines (also known as the interwebnets) has some tips on waking up on time. Various sites saying about the same things with the same amusing lack of profundity or helpfulness.

1. Get enough sleep. Oh, really? So, wait… to not be tired, I just need to sleep more. Perfect! Thanks, experts!

2. Go to sleep at the same time every night. I kind of do… It’s just that that same time is kind of late.

3. Don’t drink to fall asleep. Um… that’s stupid advice. It’s like saying don’t drink to smile.

4. Avoid eating before bed. This is just inaccurate. Hasn’t science accepted the concept of “tummy tiredness.” A surefire way to sleep is to eat lots. Combining this and what they say not to do in step 3 is about the only way I ever drift off to night-night.

5. Think differently than D.J. Kirkbride. Ah, there you go. Here it is. Yep. Don’t let your brain be like mine. That is sound advice.

6. Put your alarm clock in a place where you have to get out of bed to turn it off. Ah, this is interesting advice. And the sound of a good alarm is something you can’t sleep through because, well, onto number 7…

7. Choose a really annoying alarm. I do have that. I mean, anything gets annoying when it’s an alarm waking you up for a day of cubicle sitting, but this one “melody” on my crap cell phone really does the trick… until I turn it off and go back to sleep.

8. Be a responsible adult and just get up. Ah… hm. Uh. Hmph.

Anyway, eight is enough since, due to my not waking, I should really be in a rush to get to work, not writing a bloggy thing for reasons unknown.

Maybe… maybe tomorrow I’ll have a chipper morn. There’s always tomorrow. Until the aliens come back to reclaim their pet planet.

As I was growing up, I was, almost right from jump street out of the womb, bigger than the average human baby. As I grew up, when my doctor or teacher measured my height, I was always in the top percentile, well above the “norm.” The curious thing is that this bothered no one. Not once was I told to just act like I was smaller or slouch. I was born tall, and, hey, who cares? I just had to get pants with longer inseams than some of my classmates.

When I was a little kid at whatever age little kids are when they start picking up crayons and drawing and trying to write, and I picked up the crayon with my left hand, no one freaked out. Sure, most people are right handed, but my parents and doctors and teachers didn’t get worried or upset when I used the OTHER hand. They even let me use “left-handed” scissors when we started cutting construction paper.

And when I played tee ball? No one looked down on me for standing on the other side of the tee from my righty teammates. I even got a glove that enabled me to catch the baseball with my right hand and throw with my left! Not that a glove helped with my lack of athletic prowess, but, still, baseball glove on my right hand — no one protested like they often did in the generations before mine.

See, my mom is left-handed, too, but a little before her time and maybe occasionally still during when she was in school, teachers would try to take that crayon out of their student’s left hand and put it in the right. How awkward and just, well, wrong and pointless and stupid that was. Everyone can agree on that. Just kind of silly, right? Everyone now understands that there’s no reason a lefty has to be changed. I never had to, anyway.

Interestingly enough, I also never had to “come out” to my parents that I liked girls. My heterosexuality was never an issue. It was never something that I worried about or even thought about in that way. I didn’t have to have any tentative or awkward conversations with my pals to let them know that I wanted my penis to go with a vagina. Seriously, it just never came up. Not once. Because that’d be absurd, right? It’s just how I was born. It’s my chemical and mental makeup for some reason. Just a wacky glitch of genetics. It doesn’t hurt anyone, as I just like ladies in that manner, and if one likes me in that manner, and we hit it off, all is well. No worries. No one cares, really.

If I’d been shorter, no one would’ve minded either. Or what if I’d picked up my first crayon with my right hand and showed instinctively that I obviously felt more comfortable drawing and scribbling that way? My parents and teachers would’ve been fine with that, too, as the silliness of worrying about something like that had long since been accepted.

So, one would assume, if I’d had a predilection toward pee pees instead of vajayjays, it should be the same thing, right? I’d have gone about my life pretty much the same way, never having to make a big deal or any announcements about it. I’d just be who I was, and when I started reaching “that age” where you notice people in a different way, well, surely there’d be another boy who felt the same way, and we’d get to be adolescently awkward together and hold hands and go to the movies (with a parent chaperoning) and slow dancing at the miserable school dances and whatnot. Like anyone else, me and the fella could go steady, maybe exchange class rings in high school. It wouldn’t matter. No reason it should. Just how some folks are born.

Right?

If nowadays were like back in the good old days,  right now I’d be…

A. … sleeping. In the good old days, I could sleep in for however long I wanted after a fun night of partyin’ and hangin’ out and whatnot. My job didn’t start until the afternoon, and I’d just naturally wake up then. Back in the good old days.

B. … still working on my jetpack design. Because in the good old days, I hadn’t given up on it yet. I still thought general want and gumption, regardless of lack of funds, could beat out technical knowledge and dedication with a budget any day of the week. Sometimes the best thing about the good old days was ignorance.

C. … writing. Yeah, I’m writing now, too, but I mean writing something that would be read much more than this will. And something funnier, as back in the good old days, my funny bone was firmer, stronger, maybe girthier. Wait… that didn’t sound right. Or did it sound too right?

D. … getting brunch with friends. Just, you know, brunch. A good pancakey meal. Don’t do that much anymore. Just ate a granola cereal out of a cup because some dingus stole my bowl at work. I miss carefree brunching, money and calories and triglycerides be damned.

E. … sleeping. Seriously, I’d just like to be asleep right now. Because sleepytime is happy time.

Still, this is all rose colored glasses nonsense. It’s like what Yoda said about Luke, “All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph.” Except maybe the back horizon, which is the past. Though I look to the horizon, too. Hm, is that applicable?

Hmph. Hmph indeed. Look, regardless of horizon or back horizon, I should be more mindful of where I am and what I am doing here and now.

And, with that in mind, I should dig out those jetpack schematics, because that might work with maybe a shinier, more art deco design and an extra fin…

Sometimes I wonder, I wonder what Jon Bon Jovi is up to. In my daydreams, as I zone out from my boring daily life of living boringly each day, I occasionally drift away from the day-to-day boredom of reality… just let my mind drift and wander to where it’d really rather be.

And where it’d rather be is in the body, or head rather, of Jon Bon Jovi.

No! Wait. Um… I don’t want to possess Jon Bon Jovi or have some sort of brain transplant with him, for that would curse one of the rockingest musical heroes of our age to suffer in the failing body of, well, me. That wouldn’t be fair.

Still, I do kinda wonder what JBJ (“J” for “Jon,” “B” for “Bon,” and “J” for “Jovi”) is up to while I’m toiling away in the bowels of pointlessness for just enough money to scrape by. Is he wearing red and black leather pants with gold highlights? Is that just cas (short for “casual”) to him? Or has he outgrown the red and black leather pants with gold highlights look? Does he ever miss it?

There has to be a lot of pressure, despite being super successful, to replicate the glory of the Slippery When Wet days. It’s not like New Jersey or Keep The Faith were slouches, but… c’mon. “You Give Love A Bad Name.” “Livin’ On A Prayer.” “Wanted Dead Or Alive.” WANTED FUCKING DEAD OR ALIVE, PEOPLE! Just that song alone secures JBJ and the rest of the band a spot in Rock Valhalla.

Okay, I have to come clean. I’m now still really actually wondering what it’d be like to actually be Jon Bon Jovi. Especially mid to late 80s era Jon Bon Jovi. It must’ve been awesome. The whole Bon Jovi team (I see them as even more of a team, perhaps a superhero team than a mere band) rocked out what is arguably their most amazing music, and, c’mon… they looked AWESOME.

Can you imagine what it must’ve been like to be those guys back in those days of rocking in amazing style? To be David Bryan, Alec John Such, Richie Sambora, JBJ, and Tico “The Hitman” Torres. Yes, they’re still doing great (well, not sure about Alec, as he’s not in the band anymore, but, well, I hope he’s swell), and, yes, they still sell lots of records, but I don’t know who is buying them. Lots of people, sure, but the Bon Jovi in the above picture is the Bon Jovi about which I daydream.

Why, I bet even JBJ himself, richer in nearly every single way a person can be rich than I could ever imagine, still looks at pictures from this era and wishes he and his pals could still rock that look. And what a look to rock. My word. These fellas were not messin’ around.

Shit. I really do wish I was Jon Bon Jovi. No lie. No offense to anyone who actually likes me, but I’d rather be Jon Bon Jovi. You’d probably like me better if I was Jon Bon Jovi, likers of me. Admit it. I’m not lyin’, so you shouldn’t lie either.

Let’s rock this blog out like it should be rocked out…

Run and tell that.

Every week, I make a list of regrets. So I won’t forget. Usually this is just for my dia– uh, I mean… journal. For my manly journal. But who keeps a journal anymore? I mean a private one just for the writer, because what’s the point of writing something — heck, of even feeling something, if it’s not shared with dozens (tens? fives?) of people. Internet, people!

So, for the first time ever, I shall share my list of regrets for the week (no particular order, numbered just because of mild, self-diagnosed OCD):

1. My life is without karate. Still I have yet to learn or even actually look for a way to learn this fighting technique. (On this list since I first started making it forty-two years ago when I was eight years old.)

2. No Chipotle for dinner. After work (or, as I sometimes call it, “wooooooork”), I didn’t walk to the nearby Chipotle for a big ol’ burrito dinner. Not once. This mistake was made on account of my wanting to save money. Related to this regret is Regret #3.

3. Kraft Mac & Cheese with tuna fish for diner. Come on. I’m an adult. What the hell am I doing eating like this?The cheese is orange powder, and, honestly, I see no difference between the can of tuna and cat food! And I’m not a cat! (Still, delicious… I’m ashamed.)

4. Did not exercise. Last week I was pretty good. Did some jogging each day and whatnot. This week? Lazytown, USA. That’s where I lived.

5. Rubik’s Cube still unsolved. I can get one side, but that’s freaking IT! Yes, it came with a pamphlet of instructions on how to win, but it’d be so lame to cheat like that! I want to figure it out for myself. But I never will. Look, this regret is somewhat misleading, as it infers that I worked on the Rubik’s Cube the week in question (this one). Truth is, I didn’t even try. I didn’t even realize I regreted this until I typed it.

6. Didn’t make it happen. What is “it”? It’s… “it”! And I did nothing to facilitate the happening of said “it.”

7. Went out for lunch every day this week. I need to save money, and I’ve been doing so well for so long. What’s my deal? It’s not like I hate turkey sandwiches, which is usually what I make to save money. It’s insane and costly to  go out for lunch every single day when you’re an office drone like myself.

8. Failed to reach inner peace. Again! So elusive.

9. Could not think of a 9th regret even though I know I have hundreds of thousands deep in the bowels of my soul. I’m just not trying hard enough yet also feel 10 is a better number for lists.

10. Put my Weekly List of Regrets on my little-read blog. Really, why’d I do this? I’m actually typing this right now. Why am I doing this?