In the event that you ever find yourself in “internet love” with anyone, do yourself a solid favor…… disappear ASAP, disavow all knowledge & consider leaving the country for awhile. If you’ve already provided a phone number, change it. If she has any bead on your geographic location, it’s time to move. And by god…… do not, and I repeat, DO NOT move to her location.

Years ago, as a child, internet video gaming became popular. At around 14, David Hojak used a cartridge-based, dial-up modem designed for use with Sega’s console video game system. I was challenging players all over the United States, and as a child, kicking the holy hell out of them. Some were grown men… men you’d imagine occasionally scolding a spouse or child based on how badly they’d just lost in a game… no matter their age. It was all kinds of early-teens fun. Because David Hojak had just experienced his Dad dying brutally… a new friend had this newer “X-Band” thing, and he wanted to “play competitively”…… least of all, against me, which was a BAD idea for him, sir.

This motherf°°ker was all the I needed… not just to make friends, but also to electronically unleash my competitive frustrations.

Online video-gaming was newly-explored technology back then. In the 16-bit era, it was all being “tested,” and we were the lab rats. A girl whose ass I’d regularly kick in ‘Mortal Kombat II’ & I would play…… then afterwards, we’d actually pick up the phone & talk. She loved my voice and my sense of humor. I loved the idea of talking to a blonde woman with huge breasts, as far-fetched as that may sound. I mean, hell, I was fourteen…… I blame my testosterone. Either way, I’d end up letting her win maybe two out of two hundred matches. Decades later, via social media, she somehow remembered me, searched for & found me. Why she was looking, I’ll never know. All I knew then was that the chest had presented itself to me once again. I was no one to turn it/them down.

My first out-of-state relocation was one of the furthest “road trip”-type ventures I’ve ever undertaken. I was freshly recovered from two separate surgeries. I was doing my best to return to work full-time without missing a beat, after moving across the country. Also, I’d just been maintaining a hellish home-life in California. Weekly medical experimentation due to mystery conditions at random wasn’t very loving. Whatever the reason, I got a lot of attention for a lot of time. Somehow, it’s possible that she become jealous. Either way, back then, we separated. Yet, to this day, she remains a close friend & ally…… even considering a divorce of mine, that occurred in her aftermath.

Nonetheless…… arrival in Michigan was unlike anywhere I’d ever landed. The closest I’d come to anything like it prior was a business trip to Tennessee. Michigan was far colder than Tennessee, though it definitely didn’t start out that way. Around late October/early November… the brutality of the upper northwest’s winter began to make itself obvious, and I’d never felt anything like it. “California heat” is nothing compared to the winter chill just south of the Canadian border… on a regular basis, at that. While I was there & outdoors there, at times I felt a “feels-like” temperature of -37º Fahrenheit. I’d never been so cold anywhere else I’d visited in my life. I was wearing five-layers (top & bottom), a jacket, two beanies, glasses & gloves. Yet, I honestly thought that my West Coast-obligated ass might die via rapid-fire ice cube treatment.

While enduring their weather, I’d anticipated my beloved Green Bay Packers kicking the ever-living dogf°°k out of Detroit’s Lions… you know, to make my stay worthwhile. It began or ended so many football seasons prior. It wouldn’t have felt right if I hadn’t gotten to see it in-person. As sure as a shot in the arm, during my first year there, it happened. Green Bay’s team came out and beat ’em up to start a season…… besting them by six or seven in the end. Officially, my Green Bay game in Detroit was the first NFL game I got to attend. Later, in Texas, I’d see the Texans get beat-up by the Seahawks. I couldn’t attend any Raiders games while in Vegas (Allegiant Stadium was still under construction). With that, the casinos, work, and concerts gave me plenty to do… even when I wasn’t in the office, or working the next day. Despite occasional six-day work weeks, to get it all done per week… Las Vegas was the hottest city I’d ever worked in (let alone, VISITED). Even then, nights in Vegas at the right locations with the right people were like no other. If you haven’t been there, go. If you have excuses, stop making them before you die. If you’re afraid of planes, bring a bigger, stronger, more-muscular friend with you… someone to hold, hug and comfort you as you weep on your way to Nevada.

I’ve seen concerts there. I’ve spent all night on the strip out there. Via job responsibility, I’ve stayed at twelve different main-strip casinos as a work perk. And throughout it all, it was the only city where, at 3:00am, it’d still be 102º Fahrenheit.

And yeah…… even now, given all my travels, I prefer California over other states I’ve visited. It’s more polluted, yet somehow more filled with random, illegally-occupying ethnic cultures, than any other state. Believe it or not, that actually entertains me. And though it’s more expensive here than pretty much everywhere else, I can’t imagine leaving. Neither can anyone else. Amazingly, New York still has an insane population…… even though they’ve run out of space horizontally, renting costs are ridiculous and their inner-city streets are a filth pit. I never thought I’d truthfully say that I’ve been to, or through, as many continental states as I have. I never thought I’d see any part of Europe in anything but pictures. I never even thought I’d want to go & visit Baja…… lo & behold, Hojak’s done it all, and in less than some years.

I anxiously look ahead to doing & seeing more. I never used to see life the way I do now. Suddenly, alongside the wife I have, we can go out & spend a day conquering the world… then come back & enjoy our night as if nothing happened, within that same 24 hours. What we have here now at home is more like that than its ever been before, at least for me. I hope you are all as well-situated, easily comforted and suitably soothed as I’ve come to find myself. Psychological peace can seem impossible, fruitless. It can also be effortless. It’s all in how you see yourself, then see other things.

“In your words, I might stand in favor… but in your heart, I’d freeze”

~Chris Cornell