Flaunt it if you’ve got it, right?.....right!?

Warning: Post contains crude language and imagery. If you are uncomfortable with this (or simply don’t want to read a post about male nudity), please turn back now. You’ve been warned. 

Sorry 'Bout It Snow Storm!

This weekend was an interesting one. Instead of just heeding Mother Nature’s warning and accepting defeat, we decided to try and extend the magic of Halloween an additional week with a good, old-fashioned Hobart Halloween (Part II) Party. Now, for those of you who don’t know what Hobart is, Hobart is a magical place nestled tightly between Southern Connecticut State University and the University of New Haven, just off Whalley Avenue. It’s an old and cold three-story manor, filled with dust and asbestos and all things college. It also happens to be home to some of the most interesting and entertaining people you will ever meet in your life. In true Halloween fashion, these brilliant, lovely young men and women were on full display Saturday night.

Walking into the dimly lit basement, the first thing you would’ve noticed beyond atmosphere of glowing lights and bumping music was the sheer range of costumes that came out for the night. Some elected to be champions of humor (Steve Irwin comes to mind…RIP), while other chose to appeal to the opposite gender (I’m gonna go with the Captain Underpants twins…no one tell them I just admitted that please…) Others still chose to do both (Hellooo Cherub Nizzzzz) or even neither (various athletes and other fantastical characters). The one true constant was that everyone had a choice. For one night, you could be whoever you wanted to be, live any life you wanted to live. If you wanted to be a chubby, hairy baby angel, you could do it. If you wanted to come as Dr. Feltersnatch, the more power to you. There was no judgment, simply good times. Such is the magic of Hobart. 

Seduction...by Calvin Klein

Moving past the initial first glance and the multitude of costumes, you'd have a chance to meet the people themselves. I’d never admit this to any of them (and since most won't read this I think I’ll be okay, haha) but I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to spend a night with. They’re funny, they’re (for the most part) thick-skinned, they know how to enjoy themselves, and yet they aren’t without care for one another. Someone gets hurt or sick, and everyone pays attention. Someone tries to start trouble with someone else, and a swarm of onlookers squashes the tension before it can become anything more. This is the thing for me that separates Hobart from the countless house parties I attended in college. There’s no drunken girl left passed out in the bathroom all alone. There’re no backyard brawls or childish pissing contests between friends. For the most parts, there’s no real animosity between anyone at all. It’s just a group of friends having a good time while we pretend that the other, less attractive parts of our lives (school/work) don’t exist. I for one wouldn’t trade that for anything.

So kudos guys and girls, another weekend well done! I apologize to those I may have offended, both with my unyielding ridicule and relentless dancing, as well as my pasty white angel thighs. I hope you all still managed to have as fun a time as I did!

Until next year!

-Nate

Surviving Halloween

Well, boys and girls, it looks like I’ve managed to make it through another Halloween Weekend (for the time being at least). At this point, it really has become a tale of survival for me: Imagine a video game, or any kind of game really, where the objective is to have as much fun as possible. The more fun you have, the higher your score, and in turn the more proudly and confidently you can speak the words “Yeah, I just fucking won Halloween, brah, get at me,” or something along those lines. Now imagine that the only ways to increase the amount of fun you’re having are to consume immense quantities of alcohol (decreasing your health points), get ogled by a member of the opposite sex with a revealing costume (decreasing your self-respect points), or get some laughs from your friends with an absolutely ridiculous costume (decreasing your give-a-fuck points). This is the game. You have to have fun, but you have to survive. If you die, you lose (clearly). If you go to the hospital or to jail, while the stories may be worth it, you generally lose. If your actions bring you a level of shame you never thought possible, you definitely lose (especially with my friends; we’ll literally make fun of you for shit you did fifteen years ago). 

This year we had the added challenge of a freak October snow storm. And by freak I mean a “the snow was so heavy and the wind so strong that trees were literally getting ripped in half” kind of storm. The kind where you get woken up at five in the morning to shovel snow and saw down branches so your mom can go to work. The kind where your two year old black lab looks like a severed head floating through the yard when he tries to run around outside. That kind of freak storm. But still, I made it, and hopefully all of you did too.

Getting back to Halloween for a second, all joking aside, I do hope everyone had a safe and fun filled weekend. It’s important to have a couple days like this every year, times when you can just kind of let it all go, have some fun, and forget about the stresses of life. Times when you can be silly, (or sexy if you prefer…I chose both clearly), and just enjoy yourself and the company of your friends. That’s what it’s really all about, right?

Find joy in the joy of others. Don’t be afraid to make fun of yourself. Life’s short people.

Happy Halloween,

Nate

Day 1: Yup, finally sacked up and went through with this.

First post! Ah, it feels good to get that off my chest. I’ve been planning on starting this bad boy for a couple months now, but between work, the gym, and my reckless binge drinking, I just haven’t been able to find the time. Today’s the day, though, and an appropriate one at that, as it marks the two year anniversary of the day I first started writing my novel, The Darkener.

The Darkener began as a sort of stress relief exercise for me, a way to basically express myself metaphorically since I’m not always able to do it literally, and in time it grew into a story that I felt needed to be shared with the world (a synopsis and sample chapters are included below). What makes the book so special to me is the fact that it’s so personal, that it contains so much of my life, spun and exaggerated in different ways so that even the people closest to me wouldn’t catch on to it all. And that’s just the beauty of it: I get to share myself with others without them even realizing it. Literary espionage. Subliminal Nizz. No awkward introductions, no “so tell me about yourself” conversations, just me suddenly up inside of you (minds out of the gutter people…okay, you’re right, that was clearly intentional).

So, as a tribute to my (maybe someday) writing career, I’ve decided to share with you of all the first two chapters to my story. Hopefully the handful of you that made it this far will take the time to read through them, as well as the book synopsis I’ve included at the end of the post. I encourage you all to stop back frequently, as (barring bouts of debilitating lethargy) I plan to update this blog fairly often.

Thing’s to look forward to include:
-General thoughts and ideas
-Samples of my writing
-Letters to my future self
-And more…

Thanks for coming by! Read the rest after the jump!