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The "good" news is that I stopped counting the days since the breakup. It started to seem counterproductive and since I often rail against counterproductivity, I decided to just cut that shit out.

Unfortunately, it's not something that I would describe as a change or improvement of the situation. It's simply an elimination of a daily exercise in very simple arithmetic. If there's one thing that I don't need in my life, it's more math. Or maybe I need an extreme amount of math in my life. But, for now, I'll just take the easy road and avoid unnecessary math.

2013 started off very anticlimactically. My 2.5 week winter vacation was a lesson in baby steps. Not completely unsuccessful, but also lacking in anything resembling excitement. If I'm honest, a part of me was hoping for a montage of out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new. That's not what happened. I did notice that, on average, if I don't set an alarm, I'll wake up between 8:30 and 8:37am. If that were a super power...I'd be right up there with...Aquaman?

While not working, I spent my time putting together pieces of furniture, crying in the shower (and on the sofa and in bed and on the subway), and intermittently spending time with friends. So, I suppose one could say that I'm at two-thirds productivity, one-third sloppy crap pile.

The best part of the year, so far, is that I *finally* got my kitchen in a more or less presentable kitchen state. After a succession of baby steps, it's the first step in feeling that things are going somewhere. There are so many steps to go, so I'll take whatever little bit I get. I still have a small-ish kitchen sink issue -- literally everything is done but the kitchen sink -- but it's one big thing out of the way.

It's this:


versus this:


Not too shabby, eh?

I knew I wanted to get this kitchen crap done before I had to return to work. I wanted to start the year with at least one good thing. Even if it's just a kitchen. As luck would have it, my timing was even better than I could have imagined. I found myself in the middle of that sweet, sweet big city law of, "If you're patient enough, someone will move or redecorate and give you their old furniture."

So instead of having to wait until summer to fully furnish my apartment, it will basically be done by the end of the month. Theoretically, I could throw a housewarming/32nd birthday party at the same time.

Aside from home improvement, I'll be working on me improvement in the form of free, open source education. Coursera was my inspiration from last year. If you're interested in learning new shit for free, then I recommend checking out their course offerings. My first project (via Udacity and not Coursera) will be learning about HTML5 game development. I really want to learn more about game design in general (and I have at least a basic working knowledge of HTML5 and Javascript, which is easier than dealing with any other platform). I'm also going to take Elementary French, because hey...why not?

I still can't say with confidence that big things are on the horizon for 2013. There's still room to crash and fucking burn. But, if you see some kind of online course that sounds cool and interesting and you think you want to do it, but aren't sure or don't want to do it alone. Hit me up.

Let's learn shit, bitch
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