There’s Legal Weed in Colorado. Aren’t you Jealous?

If you don’t live in Colorado like I do you’re probably wondering what this “legal weed thing” is all about. Maybe you’re even jealous of me because I can go buy a gram of weed for $15 bucks in the time it takes somebody to fill up their car with gasoline — Oh wait! Have you heard of Native Roots in Colorado Springs? You can get your gas and grass at the same time there!

Basically I can just walk into a Rec (recreational) dispensary and just buy weed and then go on with my day. You have to be 21+ though and you don’t need a medical card, but if you have one there is a separate entrance for you usually and there you get a bigger and badder selection than a Rec customer gets. For example, would you like cannabis in your peanut butter? That’s available.

I will describe the experience of walking into a Rec dispensary to you :

Dispensaries buzz you in. The likelihood you are on camera is 100%. The taxes are high. If you buy a gram for $13 then there is at least $2–4 worth of taxes added on.

When you walk into a dispensary they check your ID and then tell you to sit down and wait. Then they let you into another room like it’s a doctor’s office. Inside there is usually a glass case and a friendly, knowledgeable budtender to serve you.

They will let you smell different weed strains they have on site. They will open the jar lid and let you sniff it. They could be “out” of your favorite weed strain. Sometimes the weed they order from farms in Colorado changes on a weekly basis.

It’s okay to ask the budtenders (like bartenders) their opinions on the products. They freely give them to help you choose. Most budtenders are a pleasure to talk to. Most of them have to talk to a lot of weirdos all day long, so be nice and tip your budtender!

Grams and eighths of “flower” come in plastic bottles that look similar to prescription pill bottles with childproof caps. They can be the color black, blue, or green. They have a warning label on them similar to a surgeon general warning on cigarettes. The labels also list the percentage of THC and CBD. Once you buy your weed you’re not supposed to open the lid inside the dispensary. I saw an uptight budtender freak out on my friend once when she did that.

You can also buy extracts and concentrates like hash, oil, butter, wax just to name a few.

There are lots of strains to choose from as you can imagine. Indica to Sativa. Indica for that mellow mood and Sativa for motivation and “cleaning your house” so to speak. And then their are “hybrids.”

Edibles

They also have edibles for sale like cookies, sodas, even lotions for body pain or massage oils (for sexy time!). Basically it just gets more and more detailed as you research this legal weed rabbit hole.

If you decided to buy an edible try 10 mg, the lowest dose, to see how that makes you feel and go from there. You don’t want to end up at the emergency room, which is where lots of pot tourists end up because they don’t know their limits and they will buy a 100 mg edible. Bad idea if you’ve never done that before.

The rules

There are lots of rules and regulations that dispensaries and weed businesses have to follow and I’ve heard it said before that Colorado is at the forefront of government weed regulation giving other states cues on how to proceed.

The amount of weed a tourist can have on them versus the amount an in-stater can have are totally different. Your budtender can inform you on this kind of stuff.

How much weed are we talking about here?

Colorado grows lots of lots of weed in the southern part of the state. I interviewed someone once and he said he drives two and 1/2 hours into Denver to deliver 500 pounds of weed to dispensaries in his van!

A cool ‘mill’

If you walked down Broadway in Denver you could literally see three or more weed dispensaries on one block. There’s lots of options for weed shopping here.

Colorado just recently put a cap on how many dispensaries are allowed to open and that means lots of dispensaries are being sold for millions of dollars. I even heard an estimate that a dispensary makes $30,000 a day.

What’s that smell?

I’ve literally walked down the main city streets of Denver and have smelled cannabis in the air. It’s not from people smoking, either (you could get a $100 fine for smoking in public). It’s from the grow rooms and dispensaries and it’s kind of a skunky smell, not always so pleasant like you would think.

Weed on sale

Newspapers and print magazines are still in business in Colorado because the advertising is all weed ads. Could you imagine getting your paper in the morning and the first thing you see is a weed ad?

Paying the price

Weed is one reason why people are moving here in droves. The estimate is 14,000 people a month move to Colorado. I’ve seen the property value go up 100–150 percent and maybe more in some instances. It’s sad when you hear so many people complain that they can’t afford their rent here anymore!

Driving

When you drive with your weed on you you have to buy a special childproof bag at a dispensary to put it in and keep it out of arms reach, like in your trunk, to be legal. Some of the special bags come with a key for you unlock it. You could also lock it away in a toolbox, too. Again there are laws on how much weed you can have on you so you have to be aware of that.

Stashlogix ProStash Locking Stash Bag with Odor Control (Black)

Weed or pot, man?

Also you should know the term “pot” isn’t hip anymore. It’s now referred to as “weed” all across the board it seems. Dig?

CBD vs. THC

If you don’t want to get high you can avoid the THC all together and get CBD smokeables and edibles. In the news you may have seen CBD has helped professional football players with their pain. It’s been said many times by prominent people that the human body has receptors for CBD and THC. The THC receptor is in the brain and the CBD receptor is in the body.

If this idea is true then how did our ancestors get these receptors? Maybe we were apes and ate the plant by accident?

There’s not a lot of facts to back up THC and CBD research because it has been demonized for so long. If there were actually legit clinical trials your doctor would start to recognize the benefits of CBD and THC to prescribe it to you, but instead there is just a bunch of data floating around and there’s nothing to back any claims.

Enjoy the view

Things could change though and maybe Colorado could be the place to pave those roads.

But until then we’ll just enjoy the mountain view, thanks!

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Face your Facebook and Tweek Your Tweets or When You Don’t Want to Spend Money on Social Media Advertising

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I’ve spent a lot of time studying internet marketing and most of it is a way to flush money down the toilet.

I bought a viral ad for $1500 dollars once and it did absolutely nothing for me.

I bought some Google Ads ten years ago and then watched Google stock rise.

How come? Because people like me were funneling money into their newfangled “pay per click” advertising campaigns on our credit cards.

At the time of this writing Facebook Ads are hot. Way hot.

I would suggest putting that money into Facebook stock instead, long term, because in all likelihood that’s a better return on your investment than buying a Facbook ad no matter how cheap they are.

If you have to do Facebook ads then here’s my only suggestion

A year ago I was following a Facebook Business Page about Facebook ads for self-published authors.

One man on the comment section wrote how he sold some books by putting a pair of “eyes” in his Facebook Ad as a picture or image.

The pair of eyes were a painting in the clouds and it was well done.

For some reason, this “pair of eyes” got the attention of people online. The Facebook Ad worked and they went and bought the book.

The man even asked if there was anything else he could do to get more sales on the comments section of this Facebook page.

The answer was obvious to me. The ad worked. Repeat it!

So if you have to buy Facebook ads put a pair of eyes on it.

Free advertising on Facebook

The best way to advertise for free on Facebook is to schedule your posts in advance.

You can schedule posts in advance if you have a “business” Facebook page, but not on your personal one, which I think is a shame.

But now you can work maybe one hour a week instead of logging into Facebook everyday to post. That’s such a great thing.

The Facebook posts will post in your sleep.

Again you will have to sign up for a business Facebook page that is free in order to take advantage of this wonderful tool.

#hashtags

If you don’t know where to start just “Google” hashtags that are specifically for your niche or business.

For example, you could put “hashtags for pizza parlors” in a Google search and see what comes up. You should definitely find some good hashtags relating to your subject by doing this.

Just be sure to save them in a file on your computer so you can reference them whenever you go tweet.

Now you can use these #hashtags every time you post on Facebook and Twitter.

Share other people’s tweets

It’s kind of a no-brainer.

You can also like or “heart,” reply and re-tweet.

It’s actionable and it pays in dividends when other “twits” out there return the favor for ya.

Make your bio pop with emojis

Put emojis in your biography section. You can literally “copy and paste” an emoji into your bio or even your tweet.

Also in the bio be sure to put something like “Check out my YouTube video” or “Visit my website” and put your URL right after this sentence. Make sure to test your link to see if it works;)

The cool thing about putting your URL in the bio is that when you “follow” someone on Twitter your bio shows up in the instant email they get in their inbox telling them how you just followed them on Twitter.

Think about it… An email letting some stranger know about you? It’s a perfect opportunity to promote yourself by “following” and having a knock out bio to read.

Your biography section is nothing short of free advertising for whatever you want to promote, so use it wisely, but most importantly just use it!

Repeat and tweet

You will find some people tweet all day long.

They’re just always sharing things they “browse” upon. This works, but if you are like me you don’t want to tweet all the time because it’ll just make you cra-cra!

Honestly, ten tweets a day would be ideal for my own Twitter pages. Maybe one day I will be able act like a corporation and hire a personal assistant to help me with this.

Oh wait… I could do just that!

If you don’t object to paying someone in exchange for Tweeting for you then check out Elance, Fiver or another site like it.

And then their are virtual online companies that will post in every social media account you have for a monthly or yearly fee. These are easy to find when you search for them on Google.

Finally

Try some of these ideas, but don’t be in a hurry.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but over time it was built so well that the “foundations” (a better word than ruins) are still there for you to go see right now. Compare this analogy to your own online business and you will succeed in the end.

For real!

By the way… another great way to advertise is to form an email list on MailChimp.

Would you like to join my email list? I’ll give you a free e-book.

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F*** Blog Posts

That’s f***ing crazy!

Why the f*** would you do that?

This kind of shock value never works down at the local open mike poetry reading, so why the f*** would you think it would work in a headline on a blog post?

What possible f***ing point is everyone trying to make by using the word f*** in their headlines anyway?

I want lots of people to read my f***ing blog posts too, but I don’t want the kind of f***ing attention using the word f*** in my writing draws.

It makes you looked f***ed up!

It makes you look f***ing stupid!

It’s worse than reading motivational blog posts written by some of the most un-motivating f*** all bloggers.

In the end I guess no one f***ing cares.

Well . . . at least I f***ing said something about how f***ed up this kind of f***ing s*** is.

No one should use the word f*** in their headline unless the blog post is about f***ing.

They say writing about f***ing is something lots of f***ing people want to f***ing read about.

It f***ing sells for f***s sake!

I for one will never put the word f*** in my headline just to get some f***ing attention.

No f***ing way.

I’m not f***ing around.

This is f***ed up s***.

Leave the f*** alone!

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Buy a Wallet!

7 Ways to Make Yourself Happier

The first thing I do is make an appointment with my therapist, but there are other things I do, too.

Walking around the block or going on a walk until I stop thinking works since the act of “thinking” itself is the reason I’m unhappy in the first place.

Listening to Abraham-Hicks on YouTube or in the car on a CD is pretty cool.

Buying a cheeseburger to eat helps.

Reading a book is one of the best things to do for sure, but not always easy for me to do even though I own a Kindle Fire Tablet and have the OverDrive library app installed.

Ten jumping jacks works like gangbusters if I can just get up and do it.

I sometimes play video games, but not that often because those are addictive and it waste lots of time. Movies and TV shows are a great way to zone out, but again can waste lots of time.

What I’d really like to know is why I find it so difficult to stop and take a deep breath? Meditation is hard for me to practice.

I’ve found my favorite thing to do when I’m unhappy or thinking negatively is free write about whatever’s on my m

I see how some people online like to make jokes about writing “not” being a therapeutic activity, but these people really don’t know what they’re talking about and honestly I go out of my way to avoid reading blog posts slanted in this way.

I talk more about the subject of thinking too much in my YouTube Video, “Thinking too much is stupid — Duh!”

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Kindergarten

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I played Disney songs on a plastic record player with yellow, red, orange and blue neon colors on it. It was manufactured by Fisher Price. I even played records in Kindergarten. That was what we did. We took scratched Disney records and played them. During nap time the teacher played them. My favorite was Peter and the Wolf. Hands down a masterpiece. That narrator talking funny like a woman? What was his name? Oh well. I’m too lazy to google it. During nap time the teachers or college kids or teacher aids or whatever you called people who worked in elementary school, they used to scratch our backs. It was great when that one lady did it. I was in love with her, but I was five so I never told her. Then there were other teacher aids who used their nails or were too gentle. Scratching elementary school kids backs during nap time! I’m not making this up. Then there was the time I tried fried chicken. My best friend and my brother were eating fried chicken. I didn’t. They thought I was crazy. Then I finally ate it at home one night and I never looked back. That kid that ate dirt. You just looked at him and thought, “What’s wrong with that kid? He’s eating dirt!” They’d pull you out of class for a hearing test. That hearing test was cool. It was like you were on a BBC set for that old 60s show The Prisoner.

I would fail that test if they gave it to me now. The best part about being that age was leaving kindergarten for the day and going home to watch afternoon cartoons on stations like fox or wpix 11. That was the best; GI Joe, Transformers, Voltron. Then my brother and I would play “Crossbows and Catapults,” the game where you build a castle/fort only to knock it down with plastic crossbows and catapults. Hands down the best board game ever invented.

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Writers Are Smart ‘Mutha Flokkas’

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It’s just my opinion.

I’m a writer and that’s what I’m into, so my opinion of other writers are high. Especially when I read their books.

For example, I like “The Great Gatsby,” “Moby Dick,” “Fight Club,” and almost anything by Dennis Lehane, right now.

All smart writers. No doubt.

Get smart

A friend of mine from grad school and I sit in a cafe early in the morning on our days off and work on our fiction with our laptops a blazin’.

I’ve never partnered up with someone like this to write, but it’s powerful.

I don’t think many people I know could ever understand the power of a “buddy” system or a “mastermind” group.

Master your mind

The definition of a mastermind group is just two people and God. I once talked to an Atheist who said a mastermind group was just two people and he didn’t make mention of the God part.

In my opinion, without including God, you’re just missing out on the best part; the mysterious process it takes to becoming a better and fuller you.

Forming a mastermind group with one other person will help you focus on the things you want to do and help you forget about all the crapola that distracts you from it.

The entrepreneurs I’ve known

In the past I’ve partnered up with other people and their zany business ideas.

Basically I subjected myself to the torture of being an entrepreneur with them.

It’s lonely and depressing when you realize you have no idea how to attract the money, the customers or whatever it is you need to make your business successful.

In fact you could read blog posts all day long and learn very little about business. I’ve done it and scoured the web for “secrets” only to burn out after hours of reading BS.

Plus, don’t forget how much money you can waste on signing up for those attractive webinars you see advertised all over the internets. Yippee!

1001 things to do

I’ve done things like sales, marketing, and even waiting tables.

I’ve done all sorts of things because I couldn’t possibly “make it” doing what I wanted to do, which was being a writer or this other word I like being… an “artist.”

How wrong was I not to pursue what I wanted to do for so long?

During those times of “helping” people with their business ideas I made great friends and learned stuff, which I would not trade for anything, but nowadays, anyone who doesn’t understand that I’m an “artist” first can basically take a muther flokkin’ leap off a cliff with a giant fire waiting for them at the bottom.

I’m kidding, but you get it.

Alien Nation

Not too long ago I had a ginormous realization I’m an alien from another planet.

It took me a long time to realize this, but I finally did.

Honestly, I really wanted to fit in here, really bad, on the planet earth, but alas, there’s just no way in heck that’s ever going to happen, now.

I find it helpful sometimes to think of myself as an alien.

I want to do something with my life and I know no one will really ever understand what is I want to do except me.

It’s all on me.

Are you writing?

Over fifteen years ago I graduated from grad school and got my MFA in Creative Writing at Naropa.

Since then I’ve done 1001 things not even closely related to my field.

And during that time only one friend ever asked me, over all those wasted years:

How come you’re not writing?

What now? Meet more writers of course!

Some writer types can be a little grumpy because they’re not used to being around people, but most of them I meet are way nice and more normal than I ever could’ve imagined.

I went to many, and I mean many, writers groups locally before I found one worthwhile and worth going to every week.

It seems like once you find people who you can hang and get into it with, when it comes to writing, you rarely look back.

The obstacles in the road to finding your own “peer group” are worth overcoming in the end.

The writers life for me!

There’s always a chance this planet could distract me with something not as important as writing, but I plan to be around other writers as much as possible now, so I don’t think this will happen (Fingers crossed!).

What do you think about the writers life?

What excuses do you need to let go of to get on with your own writing?

Write about it in the comments box below if you want.

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Brunch with Cyndi Lauper

When I was a child my parents took my brother and I to a swanky hotel in Brooklyn for brunch on a Sunday. My mom said “She looks like Cyndi Lauper.” I turned and looked and said out loud “It is Cyndi Lauper!” as she walked down the buffet line. Meanwhile people had brought Cyndi Lauper records into the hotel restaurant with them to get them signed. My brother was brave enough to get her autograph for himself and for me on hotel brochures. I was scared out of my mind and sat at the table and didn’t budge. The brochure said “XXO Fun 2 U 2.” My dad had it framed later and sent it to me for my birthday once when I was in my 30s living in Boulder Town. May dad is cool like that. I’m almost certain the front cover of the album “True Colors” was taken at this old hotel we were having brunch at. The timing was right for it at least.

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Make a Better Blog Post or Make a Blog Post Better!?!

I learned to write stories from my mother. She would write down what I said on top of cartoons I drew when I was just four years old.

Already at that young age, I wanted to be a cartoonist and went to classes on weekends at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY to learn how to draw from college students who taught classes. Again, I was only four!

In one class, I drew an astronaut helmet with a face in pastels.

“What’s the name of that thing?” I asked one of the college students watching us children during the class.

She couldn’t figure out what I was talking about. I wanted to spell NASA on top of the helmet, but I couldn’t think of the word, so I put another word on the helmet like “SPACE” or something along those lines. I’m sure it didn’t do the drawing justice, though, and I wish I could’ve remembered the proper term, “NASA,” instead.

That was me at four making cartoons.

Home is where the writing is

When at home, my mother would ask me questions about what I was drawing on the paper at the kitchen table.

“Spiderman is buying his wife a fur coat,” I said drawing this with crayons and colored pencils.

Then she would write what I said down on the picture for me with a felt-tip pen. She was helping me make comics, basically.

My mother would also try to teach me things when she had my attention like she did. She would say something like, “A.E.I.O.U. and sometimes Y.” or “I before E, except after C.”

Teaching me things would always go horribly wrong. I didn’t want to learn “stuff” at 4 years old from my mother at home and I remember getting very upset when she did that.

Cartooning vs. Writing

Later on in my childhood I won a contest in the 6th grade.

The assignment was to write a letter to “future students.” The best ones were to be put in a time capsule to be buried on the school grounds of the Berkeley Carroll School in Brooklyn Heights, NY and not to be opened until well after the year 2000.

I was chosen to read my letter in front of the whole school, on stage, in the auditorium before it was put into the time capsule with winners from other grades.

It was a hint of things to come and I kept writing stories throughout my elementary, high school and college days. Then I put in some serious, hardcore, mad skill work getting my postgraduate degree, a MFA in Creative Writing at Naropa University.

When it comes to cartooning, now, I’ve been known to draw awful pix-elated designs in Microsoft Paint, like the header picture of a lightening bolt. At least my friend tells me they’re awful. He owns all the Adobe software and is a bit of a design snob, but he’s taught me a thing so maybe soon we’ll both learn how to draw better cartoons.

Blog Post? Done!

What I’ve been doing up to this point is telling you a personal story.

What’s the significance of doing that? What does it have to do with making a better blog post?

Well, it has a lot to do with it.

A personal story

Personal stories are powerful, emotional and really interest people because all of a sudden they can relate to you in your writing. You might as well “spill it” if you want people to read your blog posts.

When reading popular bloggers you’ll see that the best ones do this like James Altucher for example.

Sometimes it’s scary, but you can edit your blog post before you hit “publish” on Medium, so take advantage of that “space” to think about what you want to say on the “internets.”

The challenge is getting words down on the page… period

How do you vomit up words? Do you stick your finger down your throat? I write for magazines and the only way I can ever write an article is to just start typing words. Eventually, I’ll have 500–1500 words and my article will be practically done. But if I just stare at the screen and don’t type, no stories will be coming — that’s for sure!

Don’t forget to proofread your work

In a sense, my own mother was my first editor, but as I’ve continued to learn to write I’ve realized there is never a good story or blog post without editing.

You can’t get away from it. In fact, if you plan to be a serious writer be sure to get used to remembering the word edit.

Haven’t you ever heard about the screenwriter who writes a story and by the time all the producers and actors look at it, it’s no longer what the screenwriter originally wrote?

It sounds unfair, but that is the editing process and it is why most people will tell you to write a book first instead of a screenplay, because if it becomes a movie you won’t recognize the original story you wrote in the first place. Just look up Steven King to find out about that.

I’m editing this post right now…

This blog post I’m writing right now will probably get edited two dozen times before I hit the publish button on Medium. I showed it to my weekly writers group, then a complete stranger in a cafe. You name it, I did it, just to make this post the best that it can be.

You really need to get used to this idea of editing if you want to be any good at this thing called writing.

First draft? Don’t worry about it!

Honestly you should try very hard not to worry about writing your first draft because you’re not going to show that one to anyone anyway. Maybe your fifth or sixth and etc. But not your first, dig?

It’s kind of confusing because I’m telling you to free write and not worry about it in the beginning, but after you have the pages written, that’s when the work comes and you will edit to make the blog post well written!

You can do it!

These thoughts should give you a clearer idea on how much work it takes to tell a good story or to just write a short, readable blog post.

It’s a tough business, no doubt. You could join a writers group and humble yourself listening to their feedback on your work. Some people can’t possibly imagine letting a stranger read their writing and critique it, but that separates the professionals from the amateurs.

So get over it and make your blog post better!

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Nothing But Awesome Songs — A DJ Mix

I made this DJ mix a long time ago, like in 2013 maybe. I was majorly depressed during that time and I sought solace through songs like Underworld’s “You Bring Light In,” listening to it over and over again, the song’s synth “stab” stabbing me every time I heard it.

I discovered it on some DJ Mix CD I probably bought in England because this one time, in 2005, I snuck in 100 CDs I bought in England into the USA. I spent like 600 to 800 pounds on dance music singles and DJ CDs.

My friend I was visiting in England told me, “You’re going to have to go through customs and pay taxes on all this!” So I went back to Virgin Megastore and bought CD sleeves or books and left the plastic case of each CD single in an English trash bin, just saving the inserts and CDs so they could slide and hide in the CD sleeves.

One CD at a time

I discovered Mylo on my music trek to a smaller Virgin record store in Shrewsbury, England. His track “Drop the Pressure” was on the speakers and I just had to have it! I bought his full CD “Destroy Rock and Roll.” Mylo is a Scottish musician and made this album in his bedroom on his computer. I believe I read he also got his hands on some BBC news audio to sample in some of his tracks, too.

Vids

Some of these English CDs had videos on them you could upload and watch on your laptop like “Call on Me” by Eric Prydz and “Out of Touch” by Uniting Nations, both excellent remixes and videos. Of course I bought lots of strictly UK chart toppers, too.

Back in the day

Back in the day, Virgin Record stores were just the best. They used to a have a Live DJ in a booth while you were shopping! How does this compare to doing a podcast alone in your bedroom with your Pioneer DJ equipment? It doesn’t. But at least people get to “pretend” to be a DJ now.

Strictly techno

How I miss music stores. If you were a misunderstood adolescent was there any better place than a “Nobody Beats the Wiz” music store or, better yet, an independent record store full of album covers you could discover, study and look at on your own? What about that spurt in the 90s, well into the early OOs, when techno record stores were everywhere, only promoting dance records????!!!!

“Where’s your Paul Van Dyk?” you’d ask and then discover a rare 12″ dance single from Germany in the “bin” that no one has ever heard of before, but you, only in that moment.

You can thank iTunes for putting all that out to pasture. Too bad I didn’t buy
apple stock during that time! DOH!

Back to the mix

A lot of these songs give me the willies when I hear them. You just want to turn it up real loud on your headphones or on a nice pair of speakers and just zone the f’ out!

Here’s just a sampling of the artists I have on this mix; Everything But The Girl, Aphex Twin, Mylo, Hyrbid, The XX, U2, Moby, New Order.

There are some tracks I just can’t live without. “Higher State” by Bailey is one track I discovered through my DJ Pool subscription years ago and I just love to mix it and listen to it. Then there is the Temper Trap remix of their song “Sweet Disposition,” which is pretty great.

The first song is by Rawbert or Rawbbie. I met him online years ago and his tracks floored me they were so damn good. He was from Canada and all his songs are made from samples. It’s his remix of a Hybrid song. I haven’t talked to him in ten years or something, but his music is awesome, so there it is as the first track.

Dirty Filthy Disco Trash 7 – Awesome (Emotional) Songs
Here is a mix of nothing but awesome songs I have loved over the years. No beatmatching, just good songs. The first…www.mixcloud.com

Check this DJ Mix out on MixCloud.

You can also check out my original EDM on SoundCloud or at Juno Download.

I Lost My Wallet Tonight

I drove straight home to get on my computer and call on Skype all the 24 hour bank and credit card places to tell them to cancel my cards.

I hated myself, my life, and I just wanted to blame others.

You see this week was my “birthday week,” so how could anything possibly bad happen the week of your birthday, right?!

In the past I used to get mad at those robot recordings barking orders at me and not hearing what I was saying and then I’d turn around and get mad at those snarky operators who are just doing their job on the night shift as a customer service representative.

I can tell you I didn’t react like that tonight. I’m just so damn mature in my old age.

The part I hate most about losing something like a wallet is spending time looking for it. Like just how much time are you supposed to spend going through your car with a flashlight into every crevice in hopes you’ll find it?

**That** **wallet** **in my hand is now lost!**

I’m usually quick to accept my fate when I lose a wallet and quickly go over in my mind how I will spend tomorrow getting a new drivers license at the DMV, a new health insurance card, and even a new social security card because I had that in my wallet as well.

Then there are the cra-cra things that go through my mind.

Will someone use my credit card before I report it lost? This has never happened to me, but it comes up as one of those scary possibilities.

Will some master criminal find my wallet lying on the streets of Denver and steal my identity? My imagination is just so vivid.

Will someone look me up online and contact me saying they found my wallet? That’s what happened to me the last time I lost a wallet.

I was jogging and I ran away from some crazy lady on the sidewalk next to me. It was snowing and my wallet fell out of my coat pocket.

Then guess who contacted me about my lost wallet? The same lady!

I went to her house and the weird part was my judgement about her was eerily on the mark. She lived in a “home” with other people who had mental problems.

I gave her 20 dollars for her troubles and never talked to her again, but the whole experience renewed my faith in humanity.

For me to wait for someone to call me about my wallet tonight is not an option. That would be a really dumb thing to do.

I take care of business and take care of myself because I don’t see anyone else offering to call the bank and credit card places to cancel.

One of my old therapists I had tried to explain to me once that there are “up and downs,” constantly, every day, every week and you have to rate them on how important they are. Is this a 4? Or a 10? 10 meaning I should lose my cool completely and 4 not so much!

I really don’t know how to laugh things off. I am capable of feeling grateful when things aren’t as bad as they seem, but laughing things off? Saying “That’s just life! Haha!” That’s just not how I do things personally. I really wish I could, but usually I’m all in a huff until I figure out the next best step to take.

Tonight the solution was driving home and getting on the horn to cancel my cards. I have a night job delivering and I just turned my car around and went home without finishing. It was depressing because this is the second time this week I have not finished my deliveries.

Earlier in the week I ran over something and my car made a loud noise. I drove it home, noise and all, and brought it to an auto shop conveniently across the street from my home (Gratitude!).

The mechanic the next day said everything was okay but he also said, “Your car is so weighted down you could damage your shocks and struts,” meaning the magazines I’d not delivered yet are weighing my car down so much that it’s this close to looking like a “Vine” or a “Russian Fail Compilation” on YouTube.

So yeah, I am very upset tonight that I haven’t finished my job due to these complications.

I am grateful I’m not one of these negative “for real” types who reference Murphy’s Law when something goes wrong. It seems defeatist to bring that up in my opinion.

Instead I told myself that I’ve learned two things; get a wallet chain or a jacket with a zipper pocket and don’t drive when your car is so weighted down that if you run over something it will screw up the bottom of it.

That’s about all I can say about this birthday week from hell.

This experience does make me feel “alive” though, which is hard to admit because I know I said to myself earlier tonight, “I wish I was dead” and I think the reason I say things like that is not because I want to kill myself, I just want my problems to go away! Maybe I should just say that next time instead of referencing death?

I’m only human and now I can just look up that 80s song with the same title and listen to that. There’s the link above so you can listen, too.

Now that you’ve read my blog post would you like to buy my e-book for 99 cents? Click here to read my short story collection on Amazon!

Listen to DJ Mixes.

Buy a “new” Wallet!