10.9.23 struggling today

Honestly, I’ve been struggling for a little while now, but it just feels more acute today. At the core of it all is the belief that I’m just not my best self.

The challenges I face, some of which i know are common for a lot of people today.

My physical health is not where I want it. I have been there before and then somehow I lost it. I know the changing then loss of a pt was partly the cause. The changing of the environment at home was another major factor

My finances are not doing well. I took out a debt consolidation loan early this year to clear out my cc debt and now I’m nearly back where i started 6 months later. This is not sustainable. There were house emergencies that played a big role true, but those will always be a problem with home ownership. I should be able to have a good enough overall net income to save for these inevitable events…but I don’t. Even if my wife made more and was able to contribute an equal amount, I don’t think we’d make enough. I need to force the financial review asap. Comparing a mortgage cost to rent is not enough. The comparison does not account for those maintenance costs. I’m not sure how to get ahead. And with N possibly moving in soon with her cats, an apartment setup can’t work…we could never get away with 5 cats. While N is still here I should chat and present our financial challenge in the future, at least so they are clear on what they might be coming into.

Relationship-wise, I’m definitely feeling the loneliness…the incompleteness. Trying to put effort into poly dating right now feels pointless. How can I give live if I have trouble loving myself? I know my health and financial security are big parts of that. I don’t ever expect to become jacked (though that would be nice to experience once) and I know I’ll never be rich…but I’d like to know that I can focus on building savings rather than struggling just to get cc debt down. There was a time before the house that I wasn’t struggling just to keep up. I weathered several storms as a result. I’d like to get back there. I’m just not sure how yet.

Something I’m seriously considering doing is pausing my dnd games. At least for a few months. I can’t provide a good experience if I’m so worried about the near future. I need to put that time into righting the ship, as it were.

Asidd from the gym stuff, I need to put focus on cutting costs and selling off things we don’t use. A big thing is to kill the storage unit, which is costing us way too much now. I also think i should get back into dance as a supplement to my gym and boxing stuff. I know I’m happiest when I keep moving.

It’s kinda like playing a pvp game against my depression. I have to keep moving, or it will get me.

7.31.23 Morning Pages

How do I track 3 pages here? Maybe I should start in Word first? Google suggests it should be in the bottom left but that doesn’t seem to be true. Quercus is starting to chew on the bench again. And I really need to change the cat litter here ASAP. I’m going to make a real effort to get it done tonight when I get home from work. As I get older I understand the hate for tech more and more. Nothing just works straight through. There’s always an interruption to fix something that didn’t work the way it went.

This is frustrating. I still don’t see the count. I could guess by screen size or scroll bar I guess. But I’m also using a large monitor so that seems a little unfair. It isn’t a clear measurement. I tried distraction free mode as one search suggested…still nothing.

Ok finally found it. Apparently, I needed to click on the triple bar thing, then click on Outline. So how many words is 3 pages on average? A quick google search on using standard times new roman 12 pt with double spacing suggests 1000 words is equal to 4 pages…roughly. So my goal here will be 750 words. I think that is a reasonable start.

Anyway, for those random internet strangers that are wondering what the F is going on, here’s the thing. After my little journey into the infinite underneath, I decided to take another shot as reading “The Artist’s Way”. Part of my reasoning was the understanding that after the experience, brains are supposed to be a little more neuroplastic again. It seems to me it would be a great time to focus on the hobbies/personal projects I had intended to. I had the book from H for a while. I started on it, but once it started talking about having to commit to 12 weeks, with at minimum of an hour a day…I backed off as I knew I didn’t have that time. I still don’t know, which is why I’m typing this instead of writing it by hand. I tried writing by hand yesterday, and not only did it hurt my hand…it took quite a bit longer than an hour. I need to remember to check the original publish date of that much. I’m not sure there is a good reason to write that much by hand. It might have just been a product of the time. Nothing about the book so far suggests it is particularly modern. It does make mention of movies/shows in general, so it can’t be that old.

I want to make myself some food. I was thinking about doing IF today…but I’m not sure if I really want to do that. If I do IF and only eat 3 times in the day…then if I’m going to meet 180g of protein that’s like 60g per meal. While for lunch and dinner that’s fine, but I don’t want to do 60g of protein in protein whey format. Especially when I use the blend with creatine in it. That much creatine makes my stomach feel bad. So yes, right after I hit 750 words I’ll make a relatively quick breakfast.

Anyhow, back to the reason behind the madness. The Morning Pages is the idea that in order to continue working on my writing, I should write 3 pages *everyday*, first thing in the morning. I can’t exactly do the first thing in the morning since I’m doing my bootcamp/boxing sessions. So I am opting for after shower after getting home. The idea is to get over “The Censor” telling me my stuff sucks and to focus on the logical. I mean, if I were all work then I probably could focus on coding stuff (he says on WordPress, which has options for that). I might sound like a child saying this…but I don’t wanna. I spend enough time at work that I don’t like the idea of taking my personal time for it. That work/life balance is extremely important for me.

I just remembered I need to check for those Heilung tickets. I believe they are doing a north american tour again. I was thinking about getting 3 tickets. 2 for myself and my wife. The 3rd will be a floater for someone. Not sure who yet. If H were still a thing I’d invite them. I’m not sure where that’ll go. I still care about them. I just don’t understand where they are at. I know the work they do now is eating at their body and soul. I think that fellowship is a 2 year process. I’m still sad that they aren’t a presence in my life anymore. That presence kept the depression away. I know I shouldn’t put any dependencies on anyone…but it sure was nice. Okay, time to make some quick food and figure out the lunch situation. I thought about a salad, but that is a more complicated storage setup. I’ll just do some protein and frozen veggies. I can do the salad tonight when it is easier to put together. And now this doc has a greyed out “Saving” and greyed out Publish. Maybe I should stick to word.

Good thing I copied this into my clipboard. Nearly lost all of this.

7.29.23 The Trip

I tried out psilocybin this morning. I had a partner’s support and did it in the safety of my own bedroom and under close supervision. This is my attempt to capture what I saw and some of the meaning I was able to get from it.

At first, I felt tired. More so than just the relative short night would indicate. My memories are already starting to get a little hazy, like trying to capture a dream. Only this was some type of waking dream. A day dream, but only something more. The covers I was under turned into a sort of translucent space ship…space vessel? I wasn’t exactly going through space, not as pop-culture/media defines it anyway. I had the sensation I was on a journey. A guest (maybe the shrooms? Maybe something else entirely) would speak to me now and then. Short words.

Must move. Must fix. Explore. Pioneer. We fix.

But before we could truly leave, there was one hitch. My feelings around the loss of Steph came into focus. I was told I needed to let go. She was okay. She is somewhere in the place between places…where we will be going and someday you’ll cross paths again. Not in this life…or really this leg of life. I got the sensation that this reality…this timeline…is all moving in one direction. Like we’re all in our own space ships within a greater whole. Then some of us have to get off the current ride, for a bit. We float off to this side tunnel and get out. Only to get back on the great ride. We all see each other again in some form. I felt myself crying. Not that sobbing weeping crying. I don’t think anyway. I was able to move on.

I’m not sure why my trip took on this space travel trip, or relied heavily on related metaphors, but it did. I myself floating in this ship through a type of space. It wasn’t outer space, though it reminded me of it. I could see what looked like those great big nebulas and gasses in space. Only that wasn’t what they were. The entire reality was composed of sinewy like threads. It wasn’t bloody or gross. I was looking at an infrastructure. My own infrastructure. The guests in my mind were guiding me in this type of tour. I had the impression I was looking from the inside out through my own brain. The processes I was seeing was the same thing that happened every night during REM sleep. Only now, everything slowed down and I could see it all. My mind was going through a type of maintenace. All the fiberrous threads I saw were part of my reality…my memories. And they spread out infinitely. After a while of floating around this type of mother ship, I got the idea that this was the infrastructure for all of reality. The space in between, or just underneath. As my physical body moved and I felt the presence of my partner nearby (though I was blind folded, I could still “see” them as an outline in my periphreal). The process had my physical body stretch and jerk every so often. Each of those movements changed the reality around me. The music that was played in the background…soft music with choruses, also changed and directed the scene. Expansive voices would grab my reality, like hands, and spread it open more. Showing me all the infinites within the minor details of it all. This is what my brain was constantly working on. It was a miracle it worked in the first place. When the music got quiet, I could feel the space condense. I found myself in the smallest sections of whatever ship I was on. Wait here, I could feel the presence communicate with me.

All throughout this scene, I could see many colors. I could understand the joke about people “seeing colors”. My senses of touch, movement, and sound all changed what I saw. Every so often I had to go to the bathroom, which my partner helped me find. Moving around because I was blind folded wasn’t the challenge. The challenge was trying to navigate both the physical space and this mind space at the same time. There were times I could see myself from the outside. But it wasn’t me as a person. I was in this type of space suit, only the head part resembled that of a random insect. It wasn’t scary or grosteque. It just was.

My partner made mention of having epiphanies during the episode. I certainly had some. In this mindspace, I could see what felt like different dimensions. I could mainly see from one dimension, but I was aware there were more. I became aware of multiple timelines. I could not directly interact with them…but I could tap on the glass between the spaces. That tap on the glass in this reality was that 2nd guess, or gut feeling, someone else would feel in another reality. Maybe it was me reaching out to the other mes? I wasn’t sure.

My big take away was the polarity between the individual and the collective. This whole inner space I traveled in was a type of mother ship that contained all of us. Not just people mind you. All being, alive or not. A ship of our reality. It was moving somewhere as a collective. I couldn’t tell where it was going to but it seemed important. Reality as a whole was moving as a collective somewhere.  But there were always dangers on the route.  The collective could not correct by itself.  It would not.  It was in its’ nature to stay together.  Enter the individual.  The one who separates from the group.  They were the ones that would pull the collective onto the better path.  The collective fought with every ounce of its’ being.  But it was a necessary conflict.

Story tellers are those individuals. They present the other realities. The other ways. Many in our reality find that change highly threatening. But it is necessary. Not all conflict is bad. Once the individual has pulled the collective over, they again became part of the collective as it assimilated their view. The cycle would continue again and again like this.

And now this storm in the real threatens to cut off this exploration. So I’m going to take a break. I think I’ve hit the end of the trip recollection in any case.

The guest found something…fixed something within me. A connection made strong again. There are stories to tell.

5-24-23 Survive

Before I get into my rant, some good news for me. I switched back to intermittent fasting + high protein/low-moderate carb diet at ~1500-1600 calories and a goal of 170-190g protein. I’m also focused on getting about ~15k steps a day along with my mix of bootcamp, boxing, and strength training sessions. I do seem to be making progress. I just want to say “fuck off” to those completely reliant on calculators. The 2100 calories was not working for me for weight loss. It might be a fine maintenance calorie intake at my normal activity level and might be a thing to do when I switch to a heavy strength training focus instead, but that is not my goal right now. I want to say those 2 months on the “Shed” program were wasted…but in a way they weren’t. It told me that I can’t rely on god damn groupthink. I’ve been doing this for a while and monitoring how my body reacts to different diet/workout combinations. I have to have faith in myself.

On to the rant. I’m in a no bullshit kind of mood today. I’m surrounded by a lot of “neurospicy” folks that almost constantly seem to be posting something that supports their “oh woe is me, I have this condition and it makes everything so much harder!”. I’m done with that. Your friends on X social media might jump in to agree with you, but the world does not fucking care. I grew up in a chaotic poor household. I lost my mom when I was 18. I have no innate physical talents. I have more than my fair share of social anxiety. I had all the fucking excuses in the world to be a useless stick in the mud growing up. What would that have gotten me had social media been a thing back then? I’d either be homeless or in another chaotic household as I found a way to just survive. Or maybe I’d be dead more likely the way my body was going back then. Probably at my own hand come to think of it. This is fucked up to say, but maybe depression’s result of suicide is a weird sort of mercy. If you stop trying, the brain doesn’t want to suffer needlessly anymore and so it finds a way out for no other solutions are possible. I’m either too stubborn or maybe too much of an iconoclast to want to give in now.

You gotta fight every fucking day to make it anywhere. And it’s better that way is my thinking now.

5.15.23 Fitness journey

I decided to add long distance walking back into my program. I walked 7 miles yesterday afternoon. I need a better strategy for socks, that’s for sure.

I still need to check the data, but going by memory I do believe my leaner periods were associated with intentional walking on the regular. In particular, I keep looking back at Dec 2021-March 2022 when I broke my plateau and hit the leanest I had ever been. The weight started to creep back up once the Cicada swarm got so bad that I couldn’t walk without being regularly smacked in the face/neck, and I just lost the routine since. I also think back to 2019 which was another successful period in dropping my weight. Back then I was in the office 4 days a week and made it a point to do regular walks on my lunch break (~20-30 min). That and walking to and from the metro added to my steps, plus the bootcamps I did at night (when I had more time to do so consistently) contributed to an average of 15k+ steps a day. I only did the 1 heavy strength train session a week with a PT (who had a background in heavy lifts and training them). My protein wasn’t high enough at the time to capitalize on the muscle gain was the only issue.

The added bonus of the long walks is my disconnect time and/or focused time listening to my audio books. When I was in my 20s and lost that first large chunk of weight (80 lbs), I had spent 30 min on the elliptical and read a book at the same time. I linked my love of stories with a lot of steps, effectively. I also had nothing else going on in my life except work so it was easier to be consistent. Sadly, I had no access to the information I do today in regard to just how important protein is and how to really work rep schemes.

5.9.23 The Journey

Today’s sleep wasn’t great. I went to bed earlier but remember waking up sometime around 3am. My wife had trouble sleeping again and came to bed sometime around then. Wonder if it is the adderal the doc put her on. Fitbit says i got up at 4:30. My plan was to wake at 5. Maybe starting to go to bed at 9 isn’t cutting it and I need to start going at 8:30.

Side bar, sitting on the metro and hear the driver announce that we are holding due to an “unruly customer at the next station”. Dc is getting nuttier.

On the diet front, I’m going back to the 1800 cal build with 200g protein, 80g carbs, 60-80g fat. While I know trainers on this trainerize app can see when someone isn’t “adhering” to a given diet plan, I honestly don’t believe this one truly gives a shit. Maybe I’m being a little passive aggressive but I’m focusing on what I know works for me and minimizing my communications. The only thing I’ll try are the workout builds themselves but I’m going to be much more liberal on using substitutes. It acts like a program for newbies but then throws in the more complex exercises with barely a few lines about how they work. It isn’t safe.

There was a guy on their group chat the other day celebrating after a year of being on this program that he lost 5 lbs. That is tragic. I half wonder if the guy running it doesn’t really just want a cult of personality. I think by week 8 I’m just going to ask to cancel.

5-8-23 fitness journey

It’s been what, a month since my last update? My mind is still a little bogged down with the breakup. It might be in part my anxiety around the possibility of having to confront them later come ren faire season. While I know they didn’t super care about my fitness level, it still matters to me and it serves as a sort of bulwark against the mental anguish. It isn’t so much just the aethestics but rather how I’m able to take this goal many people struggle with and accomplish something. To show that no matter what bs gets thrown my way, I find a way perserve and get better than I ever was before.

Right now I’m doing that shed program. It’s been a little over a month and I am not impressed. I’m taking what little bit of knowledge I’ve gained from it and going back to my own thing. Upping my calories to 2100 just showed me what my maintenance is. I have a deadline to meet. The guy running it seems to be focused more on body count than quality. I get he has a business to run, but I don’t have to settle for a shitty product in return. I’m going to drop my calories to about 1800 with a focus on high protein. And put more time into the kickboxing classes I’ve started on.

1.2.23 Reflections on 2022

Time to reflect on the past year. If for no other reason, to understand where I was and how I got to where I am now. I think I might break this down by month.

  • January
    • I was experiencing depression and loneliness.
    • I was doing a lot of work on undoing the damage left by a narcissist ex
    • I noted how important a high step count was to my weight maintenance. I should focus on that again, especially since the weather is nicer right now.
    • I was struggling with my wife’s emotional availability (she had her own challenges).
    • I started talking with H again. They were going through surgery and I wanted to support them as a friend. I had thoughts of Stefy and how important it was to be there for a friend even if there had been romantic feelings in the past.
    • I started scheming on how to bring Actual Cannibal Shia Labeouf into one of my D&D games.
    • I started taking local improv classes (workshop, ~once a month)
    • I think I was already back in the work office. I was dealing with security issues mostly. This was in the old building.
    • I had a covid scare
  • February
    • H and I got back together. I think I struggled opening up emotionally for a little while since I had been abandoned before.
    • I think I was actively training in SF and Kenpo
    • I put together my digital map case. I made a fun bridge encounter. The party was body blocked by trolls on one side and ogres on the other. The giants were arguing amongst each other on who owned the toll bridge. Meanwhile, the weight caused the bridge to start collapsing in random chunks. I rolled on a grid axis to determine which board fell. One of them was under a player. They made their dex save to not fall in. Eventually, they convinced the giants to form an LLC and got through.
    • I hit a PR on a 275 lb deadlift.
    • I had a talk with V and broke things off.
  • March
    • Things going well between H and I.
    • I think this was when I wrote that big kink negotiation document.
    • I built a pyramid scene using the 5 room model. It was a lot of work but I was proud of it.
    • I had a busy schedule between bootcamp, str training, kenpo, and online improv.
    • I replaced my laptop for a new one.
    • I got a new backpack with straps from REI. It helped quite a bit.
    • I was talking with Mia more.
  • April
    • H went on a 3 week cross country tour
    • I spent some time learning how to work with the levels module in Foundryvtt. It was cool but ultimately only useful for online only games. It had a lot of issues working correctly for in-person games.
  • May
    • Started on massage sessions
    • Attended wedding for my sis-in-law
    • I had a good connection with a striper. I wrote about the emotional experience in hopes I could write it into a story later.
    • Got together with J unexpectedly. Seems to be a comet situation.
    • Narrowly avoided Covid
    • Got reminded of my ex while browsing through munch meetups. Reminded me how important it is to be careful with the relationships I get into.
  • June
    • I was struggling with sleep. I had plans to get my home gym going but it never really happened effectively.
    • It looks like this was my busiest soldierfit month. 16 sessions. This doesn’t include my gold’s sessions. I’d like to see if I can beat that record this month.
  • July
    • I started talking with C again and went out on a date (well, hangout…I avoid calling these things dates to avoid implicit expectations)
    • I got surprised by a yard project my wife had gotten a quote for. I was frustrated, but ultimately let it through. It did prompt a financial review. That project ended up being a scam though, and we got conned out of that money. It hurt. My wife learned to always check licenses for contract work in the future.
    • My ex showed up again on a dating app (not her profile, but she was in group photos). It spurred more painful memories. I wrote about it and doubled down on my fitness goals.
    • I think I started experiencing foot pain (later turned out to be a bone spur, requiring orthodontic fitting to help mitigate)
    • I did a good gnoll voice that surprised my wife.
  • August
    • I got sick with some kind of flu. It wasn’t covid. The coughing was pretty bad. It came after attending the wedding of a friend.
    • ren faire season began. I didn’t make the weight I wanted to. I was able to still wear the pants at least. My wings never came.
    • I put a post out about accountability buddies for fitness stuff. A few people responded.
  • September
    • Took a trip to Ocean City with the wife and her partner N. Things became more physical/romantic with N and I. It was nice.
    • My sister made plans put down her old dog.
    • H attended ren faire with me several times this season. Looking at my writing, I noticed my depression stopped coming up. I still struggled with thoughts of my ex and how I was hurt. But I also finally accepted I was in a good stable relationship with H.
    • With H’s help, I got better with eye make up and tried several different looks through ren faire.
  • October
    • I met A at an event at the ren faire. We had met first on an app, and it seemed to be another dead end connection. But they came up to me at the event and apologized about it. We got along pretty well and made tentative plans to meet up again in the future.
    • I had some stress with the office move prep.
    • I went ham on halloween decorations and did a haunted walk through our backyard. I was proud of it.
  • November
    • Moved to the new office building. I had to be there the entire week the first week. I ended up catching Covid for the first time after that. It took me about a week to recover. I had the bivalent vaccine a month before and took paxlovid.
    • Before I got sick, I see I had some sort of argument with my wife. I didn’t want to come home as much.
  • December.
    • Had a great New Years spent with H and my wife. It was chill
    • I got a lot of DND/writing work done. I started using worldographer and Dungeon Alchemist. I might get back on Dungeon Draft soon too. The world stuff will be useful for my scifi world.

So all in all, I think 2022 went well. Fitness-wise it did not go great. But I have this year for that. I also really want to make progress on a book this year. I tried to make 10k words for the world ember went but did not make it in time. but H pointed out that 10k words is 1/4th of a novel. I had made 4k words with just my short story without realizing it. Writing a novel isn’t as far out of reach as I thought. I have hope for this year.

11.3.22 How Hungry are You?

This is the mantra that is repeating in my head right now.

Many years ago I had a palm reading done. While I don’t believe in any of the mysticism associated with that, tarot card reading, and general psychic mumbo jumbo, the prompts do offer a chance to reflect. Maybe not in the present, but it does come back around. One of the main things that stuck with me was the reader’s comment on how I have the ability to change my program, unlike a lot of people.

I had a bit of a spat with my wife last night over her fears of failure, adhd, and her dependence on external validation. I got a bit rankled towards the end when she accused me of not listening (maybe it was the format in which it was delivered that got to me, “You aren’t listening” vs “I’m not feeling heard”). I was also annoyed by her loop of heavy gaming on diablo/overwatch, which I admit is a bit ironic considering my heavy gaming when I was much younger. I recognize it as an ultimately unhealthy coping mechanism. If she was playing with a regular group of people (social engagement, which was crucial for me getting out of a severe depression when I was a teen), or even jumping between different games for different experiences (new ideas/experiences can spark creativity…input leads to output) that would be a more fulfilling experience. Then she complains about her health and general satisfaction with life when she does nothing to make it better. Just sticks to the same damn loop. I tried to help, but that just backfires. I need to let go and let her figure it out. Or maybe she won’t. I just can’t keep carrying.

I still felt that anger lingering this morning. It was more directed at myself. Something I just remembered now that anger isn’t always bad. It can be hard to think that. I still have a traumatic memory of feeling frustrated with my mom when she was dying and experiencing dementia from the stroke/cancer combo. She kept calling for her brothers, one of which was dead (shot in the head). I had to keep reminding her they weren’t here. One day the frustration slipped into my voice. She had one of those semi lucid moments in which she pleaded with me to not be angry. It broke my heart then. It still hurts now to think of it, 22 years later.

But anger is the body’s way of telling you something is wrong and needs changing. My body is not where it needs to be. Which is probably partially why I’m experiencing this foot pain on the ball of my foot whenever I’m doing lunges. The podiatrist diagnosed it as a bone spur and had me put into special sole inserts to help correct the orientation of my foot. The thing is I’m not super convinced it is helping. The doc wasn’t familiar with Bulgarian split squats (and he’s on the larger size) which is leaving me a little less confident. Also it doesn’t help that my insurance didn’t pay for these rather expensive inserts. And they squeak like clown shoes.

Anyway. Back to my anger. I’m using that anger to keep on my 5:30 am bootcamp workouts. I’ve always been the most successful with these. It just gets really hard to that and be involved in social stuff. I just need stronger boundaries and more rigidness. I have a hard cut off at 9pm. That’s it. Once I get gym access at the office, I’ll be doing that after work. The at home stuff isn’t working with the constant crap that stacks up front.

I also want to be at home less. I’m getting stressed out with my wife’s issues. I don’t want to be around for it. I still have those writing aspirations and it is just not going to happen at home. So to that effect, for the nights I don’t have a game to DM, I’m going to find a place outside and bring my laptop and work on my writing. I’ll leave my wife the option to come along with and use the time to do something that’ll make her feel long term productive, but I am not waiting for her. She had a choice. Stay home in the same fucking loop or take a risk on failure and do something more. Once upon a time she was inspired by what I did and used that energy to better herself. Now she mopes. I’m going to send out those letters for her therapist hunt and let that person talk to her. From then on, she can choose to do something or not.

Meanwhile, I’m hungry to do more with my life. I’m thankful my main job takes care of me and respects my time. But I still have that dream to publish some books. It isn’t going to happen without change. Change is uncomfortable. But I can look at the long game. I want to lean out again. I was there, and I could actually look at myself for a bit and not cringe. That’s more important than eating crap food or looping through the same old games that can’t even present a good story.

I’m loading a new program. I hope whoever reads this can do the same.

And finally, a song to go with this. I’ve been looping this as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwywLJAVj2E&ab_channel=Halocene