Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Halloween is Approaching

The last 10 days or so have been a bit of a roller coaster.  Not for weight, though.  So that Wednesday, weighing in at 6 lbs sub, and then to the following Monday, the same thing did happen, and I lost 3 lbs for the week, but came up 3 since Wednesday.  I don't think my weekends are very productive, but I don't eat outside of the time schedule.  I just don't move much.

This week has been similar, but I'm watching each day what I eat, and when, and where, and weigh in each morning to see when the weight starts creeping in.  Last night I was rather convinced while going to bed that the next day, this morning, would warrant a gain, since I hadn't defecated.  And then, after drinking some horrible chamomile tea, my stomach grumbled, and whirled, and I felt a pocket of stuff move from my stomach down through my intestines, and the appear at my sphincter, awaiting clearance.  I thought it was just gas, but it was so much worse than that.

When I weighed-in this morning, I had lost another nearly 2 lbs since the day before.  Having been at around 464 on Monday, I'm now at 457.  If I keep on this pace, then by Monday, I will have dropped down to below 450.  After I get to around 440, meaning the week after, I can switch to my other scale, which does do some BF% measurements with it.  My current one doesn't.  And with all this calculation and estimation, I know that if I'm honest and diligent with it, I could be near sub-400 at Thanksgiving.

I went to a family doctor, and he was a huge advocate for keto.  I told him about the cholesterol, and he suggested I take the protein back to about 15% of my daily calories, and focus on fats.  I told him my nutritionist was wanting me to do keto, and he wanted me to have her reach out to him, as he hadn't found a nutritionist yet to support his keto-craze.  So my next appointment with her will be to get them in touch, and to start on keto.  I actually made an appointment with an "Insulin IQ Coach" at a company to take their 90-day challenge, per the doctor's orders, and after that, my doctor wants to see me again.

So Saturday I start keto again, and on Monday I'll get a plan together with my nutritionist.  And we'll see how this all goes.

I bought paints a few weeks ago, and nervous about using that as a medium for expression.  I've been watching Bob Ross, and have an easel, and all the colors he plays across the screen.  I just gotta do it.  Maybe this weekend.

For now,

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Squanch and Vodka

On the Outside of Being Inside-Out

It's been 10 days since you looked at me... Remember that song?  That's not how it starts, but you're singing it in your head right now, so that's okay enough.  I've had a good/bad, up/down last few days.  Some wins, some losses, some disappointments, some shame, one superb night of rest, and an almost nocturnal emission with a Brazilian actress whom was so gullible, she thought I was teaching her how to do "excited" better.

From my last post, I had talked about weight loss; and I didn't want to follow up on the 8th because when I weighed-in, I had gained 2 lbs.  What had changed from the previous week?  I didn't go to the gym as much, but I was still fairly active.  I got a new couch, and moved that in, and spent several days hanging out with my nephew.  And anyone who has entertained a 6-month-old whom loves to jump will tell you, your shoulders get REALLY sore after just a few hours of playing, "look what I can do" with the bundle of joy.  But I love the goober, so I push through the pain and soreness so he can keep smiling that awesome smile.

So I played a lot, exercised via life, and weighed-in, and gained 2 lbs.  I didn't get a BF% measurement, and maybe it went that way, but it didn't feel very good.

Ready for the good news?  Not yet.

That same Monday, I went into work, drank my obligatory energy drink, and worked until about 2 PM.  Then grabbed another energy drink, and started to eat around 5 PM.  I swallowed an especially large piece of beef jerky just as I felt I was coming down and crashing hard from the energy drinks, and the piece of meat started a slow-crawl over the bump in my throat caused by a benign growth on my thyroid, pressing against my esophagus.  I felt anxiety, even though I could breathe, and felt my heart rate increase.

The meat cleared, but my heart rate continued to thump away.  Before I knew it, I was laying down in a peer's office, talking to them, trying to get my heart to calm down, and it just wasn't budging.  I was having a full-fledged anxiety attack at work, and couldn't understand why it was lasting for so long.  I had one a month ago and called Jack to talk to me and keep my distracted, and eventually felt better.  But this one wasn't going away, and didn't.  I went home and tried to sleep, but couldn't.  It felt like my breathing didn't match my heartbeat, and that kept me awake.  Eventually spoke to a physician, who recommended a sleep aid to calm my heart and help me sleep, which I did around midnight, waking up a few times, and feeling a little better in the morning.

As soon as I got into my groove at work, the thumping starting again, and found myself in a bit of a tight spot.  I took the afternoon off, hung out with my Pop, sister, and bouncing nephew, and observed random times it spiked from "on the edge" to "falling to my doom."  I went to dinner with the aforementioned party, and got in my car to drive home when I realized the shallow breath and tightening in my chest wasn't because of my anxiety -- it was because of my asthma.

I began to think of the timeline, and how things played out, and realized that if I started having an asthma attack on Monday morning, and the energy drinks, with their caffeine, helped improve my airways, so I didn't notice the attack, and then suddenly didn't have that with the crash when my heart started bumping harder.  And if my heart needed more oxygen, but couldn't get it from the asthma attack, it would likely pump harder, but certainly not slow down.  So the persistence of the heart's demeanor in conjunction with the asthma attack led me to believe I was about to go into cardiac arrest, or have a heart attack.

I realized this all while driving home, and then making a big decision then.  I took some anxiety meds from a few years ago that hadn't expired, and took them with some Prednisone -- the drug they give in ER's when having an asthma attack, remembering a doctor telling me that mixing the steroid with a muscle relaxer was fine, since they targeted different parts of the body, and waited.

After 40 minutes of waiting, I felt my heart thump HARD 3 times, and my lungs suddenly open up.  I jumped up out of my chair in panic, took several very deep breaths, and walked around a bit.  My heart began to slow down, and breathing became enriched with delicious oxygen.  And finally my heart calmed down.

I legit felt like I was going to die by taking steroids to calm my heart down.  Typically it's thought that steroids will increase heart rate.  But since my heart needed oxygen, which it couldn't get, the steroids opened the airways, and improved O2 potency, thus calming my heart.  After about 30 minutes of that, I felt the anxiety pill kick in and went to sleep.

So the good news was I was able to figure out what the problem was, and why it was being exacerbated.  Also, since it was going on, I decided I should still have my anxiety checked into because attacks have been happening with more and more frequency lately.  I've called a psychiatrist, psychologist, nutritionist, and family doctor for appointments in the next few weeks to get some things back in order that I've been intentionally avoiding.

I'm rather excited for each meeting, and for them to start helping me get things back together.

Also, when I weighed in this morning, 2 days after the 2 lb gain discovery, I had lost 7.4 lbs from Monday to Wednesday.  I'm guessing that my body being in a constant aerobic state had something to do with that.  We'll see how it looks tomorrow.

While I'm concerned about the increased rate of anxiety attacks, and migraines as well, I'm happy to be going to see professionals whom can help with those issues, and get me going on a better track.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Havana and Wagyu

An Unforeseeable, but Inevitable Slowing Down

Last week was my start of Intermittent Fasting.  I weighed in at 474.6, and took that at face-value, as I knew it would be changing and quick.  The week was a bit difficult, spending it at a conference, and having lunch catered to people each day smelled great, but felt awful.  Calorie-free energy drinks got me through days of fatigue and exhaustion that comes with low blood-sugar.  I had a good week with it, and stayed true to the schedule I had made.

I go to work, or whatever during the day.  Around 5:00 or 5:30 each evening I start eating, and head home around 6:00.  I put something in the sous vide to start cooking, and head to the gym or yoga, expecting to get there around 7:00.  I workout for 45-60 minutes, and get home 15-20 minutes later, just in time for the sous vide to finish.  Prepare the side dish with the meal, sear the meat, and then eat.  Larger portions, since I'm eating for a day in a few hours.  It's very difficult to do that, I've found.  Even eating not the most healthily, I still fall a bit short.  Saturday was a proof of concept, since we went to Red Robin for dinner, and I got a big burger, ate a bunch of fries, and got their biggest dessert, and was still 800 calories shy of my daily requirement.  Some starbursts kinda helped with it, but I finished the day at a sub 400 of the day's requirement to maintain, if I was catatonic.  Since I had been moving around and doing things, it's likely that I burned a couple thousand calories from activity throughout the day, so the day was quite literally close to a 1 lb loss day, after eating horribly.

From Monday of last week, weighing in at 474.6, I weighed in today at 466.2, a loss of 8.4 lbs, or 1.2 lbs per day on average.

And here's the trouble -- I know it's going to slow down.  I wish it didn't.  Despite how unhealthy it is, I wish I'd deal with those health concerns over the current ones.

If I lost 1.2 lbs per day by keeping this up, then by Thanksgiving, 52 days away, or Christmas, 85 days, I'd lose 62.4 lbs and 102 lbs, respectively.  And from today, of 466.2, being nearly under 400 around Thanksgiving, and being around 364 at Christmas would be huge.  I'd fit on a plane without the extend-o-belt.

Then, keeping that going, to get down to my all-time low, of 262, I'd just have to persist for another 85 days.  That's mid-March of 2019.  To think that by April, I could be at an all-time low, and May being my ideal weight, having lifted and Yoga-ed into my body, I'd daresay that I would be in rather good physique as well.  Then taking supplements for the extra skin, and THAT being my biggest dilemma, I'd be stoked.  I'd take the hunger every day, and accelerate this 2-year sentence, and get out for good behavior after 6 months.  I would TOTALLY do that.

But I know it won't last.  As I lose weight, even proportionately, I'd go from 1.2 lbs per day to 1.1, then to 1.0, and 0.9, and so on, until it was 0.1 lbs per day, and then the last 30 lbs takes longer than the first 100.  And that's just rough to be so close to a goal and not get there just yet.  But perhaps by then the things that are super difficult now will become easier, and I can just push harder to it.

I am curious at what point will my body/mind realize that certain things are easier.  Like, even at 364 lbs, that's a lot more than I should be, but I wonder how much difference I'll feel from doing things, so much that I'll notice them, or not realize it's easier because of how little difference it is.

I still have yet to figure out milestones, goals, or how to measure success along the way.  And I wonder if this severe weight loss can be cascaded into further weeks.  This will will be very revealing for me.  If I can lose another 8.4 lbs, then I'll feel a bit confident about the whole thing.  If it's closer to 5 lbs, with the same effort, then it's likely my body stabilizing to the diet, and another week or two will tell me how to project the future.  And then I'll know closer to what I expect.

I hope my post next week is more along the lines of "Yay, it worked the same again," and then I can keep tracking that.  Otherwise, I know the feels associated with that, and it's difficult to stay super positive, despite the fact that loss is still loss.  Then it feels more like missing out on parole, and you will have to endure your entire sentence.  It inspires hope, but doesn't usually allow for the hope to warrant any merit -- but can often turn the hope into anger or disdain, so much that you give up.  Don't.  Easier said than done.  Just don't.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

C

Trainings and NETworx

I find myself drawn ever moreso to the allure of travel.  Being in places I really have no right to be in, just to be there, and experience life there is very intriguing.  I'd love to find a way to travel each year a few times.  Maybe even finding a less-than-often traveled means of getting there.  Like getting to a country via boat instead of plane, but not cruise-liner, and closer to fishing boat or charter.  Hell, even walking there from another country would be nice.  And I'd love to do it in different garb than expected.  It would be unique for the locals and make it bit more memorable.

Places I'd like to visit:

Japan

Cuba

Iceland (even though they were the bad guys from Mighty Ducks 2)

Cancun

Brazil (during Carnival)

Mexico City (during La Dia de los Muertos)

Peru??? (Bro-in-law is from there)

Australia

New Zealand

Bahamas

WW2 tour (England, Italy, Belgium, Germany, France, Poland, Austria, Switzerland)

Sweden

Greece

Anyways, learning the languages to me would be important.  So that would be:

Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Dutch, French, Polish, Icelandic, Greek, Swedish

12 languages... I wonder if I could do that... I'm sure I'd learn shortcuts and improve on the process significantly as I go from language to language.  The Latin-based languages would be easier with my Spanish and Latin experience already.  The German languages would be different.  Maybe.

Panic and Cold-Sweats

Around the Whirl in 80 Minutes

This weekend was a bust of sorts.  Friday I drank until I was really out of it.  I recognized this, and cooked up some pasta to help counteract the symptoms.  I didn't have any sauce, so I used some lemon juice and various spices/herbs to flavor it.  It was disgusting, but drunk me didn't seem to mind.  It did help clear me up after an hour or so.

However, Saturday around 11 a.m. I got a migraine that stayed with me through the rest of the day.  It made my Saturday activities unmanageable, so I just sat there, and tried to endure, despite taking Advil every 4 hours without comfort.  I took some zzzQuil to help me sleep that night.

Sunday was a bit better, but I felt exhausted, recovering from the migraine.  And when I went to the store to get the stuff I should have gotten on Saturday, I nearly had a panic attack.  I lost focus, couldn't concentrate, started sweating profusely, and it was a cold sweat, and couldn't realize what was going on.  It was hard to breathe, remember things, and I felt like I was going to pop.  I called Jack, and he distracted me for 12 minutes, and got me through the brunt of it.  When I looked at my cart after, I had put some stuff in there I didn't go there to get, and made my way through checkout before I put in a bunch more I didn't need.

Getting home, I cooked up some bacon, tried to eat some pears, thinking it was low blood-sugar, and it wasn't, and debated driving 30 minutes to visit my sister and her family.  While eating the pears, I nearly couldn't get them down -- they just tasted so much not like what I needed that having them in my mouth made me nauseous.  Water, sodium, or sugar proved fruitless to whatever was ailing me, but I really didn't want to not visit with my sister, so despite my concerns for driving an hour after I nearly passed out, I drove down.  I had a hearty, 2-minute cry while I was driving, and that really seemed to make me feel better.  I guess some sort of hormonal or chemical imbalance that was evened out through my expulsion of tears helped to bring me back around, and I felt great for the rest of the night.

When I got home, around 9:45, I watched a show, waited for sleep to call me, and then fell asleep.  Waking up at my alarm, and wanting to sleep another hour, I reset my alarm and rolled back over.  I was pulled back awake by a text from one of my guys saying he was sick, and I got up about 45 minutes after I intended to.  Since I didn't have food things to worry about, I showed up at work about 15 minutes later than usual.  So it felt pretty good to just roll over and go back to sleep.

Today I'm feeling pretty chill, and trying to keep that going, and see if I can have a good week.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Bob and Ross

Into the Void

I have had a not-so-great week when it comes to sanity and self-esteem.  The last time I felt this down was over a decade ago, and it was largely caused from an obsession with numbers that I once had, which led to me blacking out, and coming to lodged upside-down under a desk that was already much too small for just my legs.  This episode didn't result in that, as I discovered a fix for it before I fully cracked, and that was sunlight.  The sun seemed to melt away a lot of the claustrophobic feelings I was enduring.  It didn't cure me entirely, but stopped me just short of toppling over the edge and blacking out.

However, since then, I had very terrible sleep on Sunday night, which led to fatigue Monday, and increased stress, causing anxiety, making it harder to sleep.  Cue Wednesday night, where my 3-hour nap didn't do enough for me, and I had to go home halfway through Thursday so I could try and sleep.  Some help from firewater and a sleep-assisted medicine, and I took a quick nap in my computer chair, followed by another 3-hour nap in my bed.  I ate dinner, groggily watched a movie, and then dozed off again for another 8 hours.  12 hours total, and now I feel stupid for having to take a half-day because of stress levels not being taken care of.

So now I'm needing to implement some better stress releases.  And really, I don't know what will do it.  While emotional escapes will help, I find most of my stress comes from worrying about things, and scenarios which might come up.  So it really feels like something I need to do to slow my mind down, which I've only done with some sort of substance.  And as I've stated in the past, at least vocally, I can't rely on a substance to exist, as that would indicate that I no longer have much of a say over my life.  And I can't be okay with that.

How do I slow my mind down?  All I can think of is meditation, but how?  Do I learn about means of reprogramming my mind, and see if I can force it into a shut-down cycle?  Do I discover a mantra that I iterate when I need to sleep, and eventually saying that will induce the chemicals my brain needs to allow REM?  Hell, maybe trying to employ the terrifying concept of lucid dreaming should be used, so I can adequately express myself in a particular situation, as psychotically as I want, without worrying about ramifications.  I.  Don't.  Know.

So now, at the end of the week, looking toward the weekend with some apprehension of how it will go, or what I will be able to accomplish, and am already regretting Monday, despite the changes I will be making to my diet.  Since, regardless of the presence and health of my mind, if I don't address the health in my body, I will absolutely not have enough time to benefit from getting my mind there.  If I have any shot of maybe doing Scotland in December, which is 3 months away, I need something extreme.  And right now, being closer to 480 in size, getting to or under 400 by Christmas is a bit dangerous, but feels absolutely necessary.

I've already ordered what I need for this change and new schedule, and hopefully my new schedule will dictate for me what I do and don't have time to do.

Perhaps I do need an evening routine, which I must do before bed.  I shall explore that tonight, in preparation for next week.  

Work has suffered as a result of all this, as my motivation to be me is just so low, pretending to be someone else is just not happening.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Rage and ASMR

System of a Frown

Holy shit-pickle, Batman -- what a week!  Let me start by staying I had a pretty big crisis rooted in existentialism over the weekend, and ended up so depressed and feeling a sense of hopelessness/pointlessness that I haven't been able to focus or sleep.  I'm very tired... of just so many things.  I'm tired of a job that demands so much more of me than I really want to give it, and having so little that I'm passionate about outside of work that even if I worked less, I'd find another form of disappointment waiting for me, with a waffle and cigar in-hand each night.

And I'm not quite over it all yet, but need to find ways of staying positive.  I thought research activities would keep me intrigued enough to stave off the feelings, but it didn't.  What did start to help was researching things to research... ironically.  And that is leading to the need to record my thoughts right now, as I need to make some more changes to my self and schedule.

Kempo, Painting, Harmonica(?), Jazz drums, sanding...

I got massively distracted for the rest of the day.  The above are hobbies, which I feel I could do as a means of calming down at the end of each day.  For Kempo, it's more of the slower style of technique in martial arts, like Tai Chi, but similar to the Karate Kid III kata that Daniel does.  Something slow, intentional, focused.  Painting doesn't necessarily have to be Bob Ross style, but can be aggressive or even angry -- a channel in which I can focus my thoughts and let it all out.  Harmonica is a bit of a toss-up for me, because it's loud and abrasive, but is small and compact, so it can be taken with me on trips, and relied on for a vacation form of calming down, as long as I can play it calmly and softly.  Jazz drums is just another way of saying "banging away" to the beat of life.  Sanding means that I might try and shape wood, solely through the merits of hand-sanding things.  It will take a long time to get projects done, but they are meant to help calm me down, and slowly degrading a piece of wood into a precise intention sounds highly relaxing to me.  Nothing rough or aggressive -- just the slow, perceived motions of grinding something into nothingness.

I might even start with a bow, and buy a piece of hickory (though I wish bamboo was more available), and trace out a pattern.  Spend time on a Saturday cutting off the bigger chunks, and begin sanding down the edges into something smooth.  Maybe even use some of my painting tools to help with little grooves or decorations.

Then make some arrows, create the fletching and arrowheads, and connect with a string.  Then maybe find a range to test it out on.

I'm considering making an ASMR channel on youtube with it all, but that will cause some stress.  I might record it, but not post it for now, until I know it works for me.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Bound and Unbound

Delay of Thoughts

I know it's been some time.  My last thoughts were on the finality of things to come, which have passed.  And I had a friend explain that a journal is a means of exerting control and accountability on things which you might otherwise overlook.  So I'm back, with not more than a few weeks of silence.

So what's happened?  Nothing really to worry about.  The retirement party went well, and was also their 40th anniversary.  Things changed last-minute, decisions were made for groups without consulting the groups, and I got to foot the bill for a party that was taken away from my ability to provide input on.  So, I'm a bit butt-hurt about that, but it's in the past, and all I can do is to learn from the experience and move on.  I'm trying to not let it get me down.

The party is over, and past is now what I was worrying about in the future.  And since the past can't be changed, we are now where I cannot meddle into.

The party was good, and the parents loved it.  My Pop was surprised by my sisters showing up, and my Mom was moved to tears by the songs my brother wanted to play.  We gave gifts, and spent time together, and I got to help my Dad out with some things around the yard and house.  All-in-all, it was good.

Cronenbergs and Blobs

I have deleted all games and social apps from my phone.  I have logged out of all social media on work and home systems.  Yesterday I opened a tab at least a dozen times looking to go to Facebook, and had to remember to not do that.  It was ingrained in my mind so that it was a passive action, and not really thought about, like a nervous twitch.

I have a plan for all the things I need to do to physically de-clutter my life, and I'm hoping that this Saturday will be for cleaning a lot of things up, moving things out, throwing things away, donating things, and simplifying my life by a large margin.

I was going to spend a lot of time researching things for writing, and spend Saturdays and Sundays writing.  I was going to revisit an old idea, and see if I can push through it, but had an interesting dream while I was in Washington that I'm going to put into a story.  It's one of those dreams that kinda sticks with me, and I want to embrace it instead of trying to get rid of it.

The basic essence is that the world is infected by blobs which can consume anything, and as it consume materials, it learns how to make the rest of the pink, gelatin mass that it is into whatever it consumes.  So it consumes grass, and can disguise itself to look like grass.  And when unsuspecting creatures touch it, they are consumed immediately by the mass.  But it's not seen by anyone.  Like... if they touched a railing, and the railing was this creature, then where they touch is where the creature penetrates through the person, and within a second has entered into the body, severing the spinal column, and killing the person, but keeping the person upright so it looks like they just froze in place.  And the connection to the brain from this creature allows it to "learn" to be human, so then the now dead person, who looks like they just hesitated turns and asks for someone to come over to it.  And if anyone touches it, they are consumed, and become part of the chain of entity.  So now the creature is the culmination of the railing, the person that grabbed it, and the person that grabbed them.  The creature can't really crawl or move around, but expands based off connections to living material.

A child walking down the street steps on a patch of asphalt that looks like asphalt, but is immediately consumed.  To everyone, the kid just looks like they're standing on one foot, middle of the hopscotch routine, but they're already dead.  And the creature taps into vocals and movements, and reads their thoughts, and knows how to act, and the little kid, still frozen in place, turns toward their parents, and asks them to come help them.  And parents, eager to help their kids come over to scoop them up, but are immediately consumed, frozen, and now join in calling others over to "help".  Like a beckoning venus fly trap, that sounds, acts, and looks like your loved ones, or innocent bystanders.  Everything is questioned for safety.

And each EnTity, a distinction given for these particular creatures, have different personalities, meaning they aren't just parasites, but have actual intentions, which make them very frightening to consider.  Some lay around until they are touched, and consume and expand, never moving.  Some manipulate what they touch to seem more appealing.  Some will shoot out webbing or arms like tentacles to grab people if they get too close.  Each develops traits they learn to be most effective for where they land.  Only the largest EnTities can move themselves around.  The largest, EnTity 0001, also known as Momma Blob, spins like a ball around cities, picking up people like a lint-roller.

Anyways, that's the idea I'm going with.

I'll explore avenues, and learn the story, and begin writing on Saturday or Sunday.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Saints and Siths

Unfortunate Realties

It's been several days.  I haven't meant it to be gapped like this, and my current effort has been better than my previous attempts, so that feels like a win.

Let me explain the gap:

My results came back as benign, a crappier strategy was decided upon, others are imposing their uneducated opinions into my realm, and it's incredibly distracting.  I'm trying to accomplish a lot for myself, work, my family, and community.  And honestly, it's a bit overwhelming.  And recording it seems like an activity that I can't afford to do, despite spending a lot of time today wasted on videos while I contemplate what to do next.

And here's my dilemma:  I can't seem to find the proper motivation in my current state of life.  I've tried to change little things here and there, but it's not really working for me.  Almost like I'm drowning, and need to get air -- a small puff to an already exhausted pair of lungs won't help as much as it will patronize.  I need something big and drastic.

Maybe that means a change of self, or a change of location, or change of work, or change of approach.  I've gotten too complacent with how things are, and they aren't necessarily good, hence the grasping for air metaphor.

How am I to change this then?

I've considered trying my hand at writing.  There is something inherently difficult for me in writing something larger -- more than a short story.  And I end up over-analyzing things.  I get worried about how someone might try to read into what I'm writing, or how it might impact my family or my family's perspective of me, and then I stop, or rewrite myself into a wall to avoid the pile of shit I was wading through to get to the next scene.  I either need to write something without using my mind to do it, or press forward with a very self-destructive mentality, looking forward to the concept of morphing my relationships to that of concerns and worries about my frame of mind.  The time from writing to having it proofread by friends, feedback, sending to publishing house, awaiting feedback, and seeing how I do, over the course of several iterations of attempts, this is a years-away sort of plan, where the soonest time is like 6 months from now, and that's if I started now.  And I can tell you my heart just sank as I considered doing that.

Being an all-or-nothing kind of guy, that means getting rid of the limited time I already have to something that's going to take a lot out of me.  I'll be at work for 60 hours each week, sleeping, hopefully for 56 hours, giving me 90 minutes each night for writing, and then weekends for hours to get it done.

Here's the gamble behind that -- if I did that, I would be having to rely solely on my work time to get better at programming, and prepare for what might come in December.

And that would mean that I'm programming most of the time.  But what do I program?  I could work on automation tests, and improving the framework, but... I should do that.  I was hesitant, thinking I should give it to my guys to be able to learn and build on their own, but there's no guarantee that they will want to, or even find time to do so between now and then.

So that might work, but it'd be taking the concept of a jail sentence a bit too literally.  I suppose that after my sister moves closer to the parents, then my social distractions would pretty much disappear.  I could reach out to frequent friends and simply say, "I'm working on some personal stuff, so I'm sorry, but leave me alone until the end of the year."

That actually sounds like it could work, and my heart fluttered up as much as it went down considering writing all the damn time.

Turn the desk in my room meant for study into a writing desk.  Figure out the password for my crappy laptop so videos and games can't be installed.  And then write on that.

I'm not certain how easy it will be to turn off the critical side right after work into the creative side, without some bleeding over.  The mental exhaustion will be high after work each night.  Perhaps I'll need the critical to go over plot points, map out direction, and figure out story directions and plans then.  Perhaps the logistics of the story can be worked out throughout the week, and the weekends are where I do the serious writing, in back-to-back fashion.  Wake up, eat breakfast, do some stretching, sit and write until lunch.  Eat something small, write until dinner.  Write some more after dinner, and go to sleep, having written all day.  Then take Sunday to relieve stress -- go for a walk, or cry, or work the punching bag, or fly to the moon and dance among the stars.  I could find cultural activities, visit museums, historical sites, or just be in public for the hell of it.  Maybe even take my scrollpad with me to jot down thoughts or ideas, or references to make throughout the stories I'm writing to give them a bit more character.

My totems at home remind me every day of things I need to do.  But I'm doing them more as a static exercise of qualifying them because of how life just practically is for me, instead of actually working them to completion.  Perhaps something actually psychotic for them is needed to actually make an impact.  I could paint in the background with red... until it feels like I have filled them up.

Something I was considering doing for this drastic change is to throw out my excess.  I have a tinker table with piles of stuff on it that I know I won't be using anytime soon.  I have a bookshelf with books I don't need because the Internet exists.  Perhaps I could/should declutter my life before I start to make it less complicated first, and then move into something larger.

This weekend I'm... I don't know.  Those who answered my messages for videos will send me whatever.  The next weekend is the party.  The following... I don't know.  Perhaps this weekend I should declutter.  Throw it all out.  Then at WA, finish that task, give out all that I have left for the cluttering, and know it's now past.  Then begin the push.  Selfishly.  But not for the long-term.  Just so I can afford to not be selfish any longer.

The thing is that I know Jack would support it.  He's always been a good friend like that.  The others, I don't know.  It might feel more personal to say, "leave me alone."  Should I close out of facebook?  Any other social medias?  Uninstall dating apps and games from my phone?  Carry my scrollbook more around than my phone?  Turn off my computer upstairs, and really just keep my door closed while I work each night?

Create a Room of One's Own

What aspects of me would I lose?  Which aspects should I lose?  What should I seek to gain back?  It would likely seem like depression has set in.  My general chipper nature might wane or fade.  Perhaps my patience would go with it, or would increase with my lack of need to control as I am given a world of my own to do with whatever I want, I won't need to do it here?

Not go see a therapist until I have the time or need to.  The goal going forward would be to program into something in December.  And if I hadn't sold a book then, try for the car move, and try that lifestyle.  Perhaps my time at work would decrease, and I can revisit my game plan.  For now, I think I need to embrace the shadows, more than struggle for the sun, and play a gambit toward a cave that might harbor air, instead of dashing toward the surface.

I wonder if I can write emotion into something without emotion...

Throws and Pillows

Egregious Clown Laughter

My dreams last night leave me feeling wanting.  I was in the Castle Rock TV show town, and knew that because I was there, Pennywise was in the universe somewhere as well.  Kujo turned into a Dachshund, and the clown was first a midget, whom I disposed of quickly, and then the real version showed up and made it difficult to want to go back to sleep.

My back felt like it sort of slipped out on Saturday when I went for a walk with my sister and Pop.  My legs were already a bit shaky from Friday's leg day, and the walk didn't help, let alone my back kinda slipping out.

Sunday my friends from AZ went back home, and my back made it easy to sit around the house until I drove up to the city to see my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and Pop before his flight.  We discussed a few things, one of which was my curiosity in how writers like Stephen King can write such horrible and grotesque things, and not in the moment push back from the desk and realize that what they just wrote was really fucked up.  How do they get away with it in society in general?  My Pop shared some thoughts he recalled from King's "Memoirs on the Craft" book where he talks about a few things that make him as a writer really just himself.  I guess he mentions that as he gets into the story, he's just following along like everyone else.  He doesn't write the story -- he makes a record of what has already taken place in a format like it's a historical record, even if in the form of fiction.  In that way, he's not the fucked up one -- the story is.  He just had to be the first to witness it.

And that begs the question of what else has he "witnessed" that the world will never see?

I've been curious because I've written myself into corners where something drastic is about to happen, but I realize it's just too off-keel to be okay with, so I either stop writing, or go back and rewrite so I don't end up in that position.  And then everything is second-guessed, and before I know it, my story is vastly different than how I started telling it.

Perhaps I should embrace it for a book and send it out.

However, I'd have to figure out the proper writing posture, because right now my forearms are on fire after just this short amount of text.

Measurements of Sole

I did my body scan, and got some pretty good data.  The metabolic assessment revealed I need to eat no less than 3600 calories each day to prevent losing both fat and muscle.  Anything extra on that for activity will add to the weight loss.  I'm still trying to figure out a plan, but calorie counting is now on the agenda.

I had about 220 lbs of muscle on me, which surprised the scan technician, and they said I have very healthy and strong bones.  So that's nice.

I figure I'll have to lose about 100 lbs to fit all of me onto the table.  I did get more of me on the table at the on-site facility, but not all of me.  So that is going to be a milestone.  I don't want to setup milestones as being weight lost in lbs, since muscle gain vs. fat loss is really the goal.  Perhaps more functional results will the be milestones I celebrate -- like fitting on the scanner, riding an airplane without the seat-belt extension, etc.

Today will be spent taking anti-inflammatories, using a heating pad, which I have going right now, and stretching my back out.  I can't not go to the gym, so that will be happening.

I realized that with some investment into exercise gear, I could do an at-home gym, and not do the gym elsewhere.  Current schedule doesn't allow for much "me" time and I need more "me" time without losing my mind.  I'll be investigating if I can get that started soon, or how long I'll have to wait to do that.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Kings or Pawns

Paved with Good Intentions

I was a bit behind all of yesterday, and didn't get the moment to remark on the previous day's activities or efforts.

For work, the day is coming back to my mind as being filled with the same rig-a-ma-roll as usual.  Lots to do, not enough time to do it, in need of resources, and no time to acquire them.  I had my 1:1 with Ken, and we discussed a few things which had come up, but they seem rather pale in comparison to yesterday's events.

Time at the gym was good.  I found it interesting that as I worked on my back and biceps, after shooting my triceps, shoulders, and chest on Monday, as I could tell I was curling wrong or rowing incorrectly, as those other muscle groups began to protest.  It indicated pronating or supinating on my joint rotation to not allow for the proper muscles to be worked effectively, and reminded me to keep things in a proper technique while lifting.  The end result was legitimately more fatigue than I was expecting.

Also, I found it difficult that there are only 4 squat machines, that also double has bent-over bar rows, bench press, and dead lift machines.  There are no loose bars and benches around the gym, so those 4 machines are legitimately always in use, because they are needed for so many core exercises.  It makes using the gym during any core hours difficult.  As a result, I grabbed a cable machine with a strange attachment to try and simulate bent over rows.  It wasn't nearly as effective, but it was better than not.

When I went home that night, I only got a couple episodes in before heading to bed, wondering if I'd sleep with anticipation of the biopsy the following morning.

The Convenience of Playing Stupid

I did sleep well.  I woke up feeling pretty rested, and was able to sit in bed for an extra 20 minutes, because my appointment was at 7:20, and if I left for the facility at the same time I'd leave for work, I'd be 30 minutes ahead of when I needed to be there.  I took comfort in that, and got to prepare my mind a bit more for the day.

I went to the facility, and checked in, wondering if it would just be done in the office there.  It seemed like it wasn't as big of a deal as other biopsies you hear about, so I was thinking it would be in one of the rooms.

I was taken into one, and I was instructed to get on the table, and just relax.  They situated a pillow under my shoulders, but no higher on my torso, causing my head to fall back uncomfortably, and exposing my neck.  The doctor explained they'd be going in only a quarter to a half an inch in, as everything was right at the front.  That was reassuring.  He took another picture with the ultrasound machine to see if the nodes had grown in size, and then gave me a count up to 3 and stuck me with the needle.  It felt like I was giving blood, and more to that point as he started rooting around inside with the needle.  He explained he needed to brush against the nodule to scrape off some cells, and that's the reason for the rooting.

He got what he needed out of the right node, and then moved to the left.  The experience on that one was vastly different.  The moment he inserted the needle, I felt a great deal of pressure against my throat -- like someone was shoving their thumb against my windpipe, making it more difficult to breathe, and filling me with anxiety.

Knowing I was in the company of a doctor and nurses brought me comfort enough to not freak out, but the rooting around felt wildly uncomfortable, especially with the added pressure to my esophagus.

When he got done, he pulled out the needle and was worried that the amount of sample wouldn't be enough.  After checking, he said he needed to do it again, and went in on the left side for a second time.  Knowing what was coming didn't help, and I struggled for air for another few minutes as he got more samples.

After it was done, the nurses cleaned me up and I left for work.

The biopsy was not the worst thing about the day.

Getting to work behind on the day meant that all my meetings were now upon me without my typical morning of focus and effort.  So I went from meeting to meeting, trying to resolve issues and concerns, and communicate things from one group to another with the goal of getting everyone on the same, flame-stained page.

Despite the meetings last week, and the confirmation on Tuesday that Testing would only take place on Legacy items during integration, and only in Happy Path scenarios, so we could focus on the new project, one of the managers claimed to not know what the plan was.  He was there for all the meetings, didn't appear satisfied, but the rule has been that once we leave the meeting and a decision is made, we all support it, whether we like it or not.  This manager decided to not support it, despite all the times I've gone along with one of their crappy ideas even though I hated it absolutely.  He came to me in the morning, concerned about not doing Testing in Legacy, and asked him how we were going to create the resources to cover both systems, and when he couldn't come up with a better scenario, I told him the plan would stick for as long as we were in this scenario.

He nodded and said he understood and left.  But what did he go do?  He went to our boss, and cried and moaned that he didn't like the QA plan, despite not having a better one, and demanded that we change it, without offering a means of accomplishing the tasks.  So my boss called me in and asked me to come up with a different plan so this manager, whom has no QA experience or insight to the work, would feel better about how I'm managing the group.

I was taken aback, and tried to illustrate the scenario so it could be seen that there were no other options:  We have two buckets that need Testing done, and only one bucket of QA resources.  We've already said as a company/department that this new project gets all the resources, so I pour the QA bucket into that project.  What's left is an empty Legacy bucket and an empty QA resource bucket.  So that other manager can complain about the empty QA bucket as much as he likes, but it won't steadily fill with his tears.  As they say, "It is what it is."

But that wasn't an acceptable answer, so I was tasked, and requested to "sleep on it," to try and figure out a means of providing extra value from out of my ass.

So I went home and stewed and fumed on it.  I actually got less sleep last night, angry about that, than I did anticipating potential cancer from the biopsy.  I ran harder at the gym, doing 1.91 miles in 20 minutes, much better than before.  But I'm still a bit beside myself on the issue.

The problems I see lie in the fact this other manager is now trying to find ways of micromanaging me and my team, and being reinforced with the notion that if he cries enough about things he doesn't understand, he can enforce changes to occur.  And then take everything he has just screwed up, and place it on me to figure out and deal with, when I just got done balancing the previous mess that was already balanced and figured out, and he came to kick over because he didn't like how a particular portion sat with him.  He has no responsibility in the matter, so why not cause more work for someone else needlessly, and then claim to be able to help with the fire he just started, by offering up industry pitfalls and obscenities which will cause more problems in the long run.  But he doesn't have to deal with them now, so that's a problem for future him to worry about.  Instead, he'll give it to me to pay for.

I don't see a winning option now.  I see various formats of failure, where he throws his hands up at the end and says, "I told you so," and conveniently forgets again that he ever caused it all.

So today will likely not be a good work day.  After work, I will go to the gym, do legs, and then head to Salt Lake to see my Dad and spend the night at his condo in the city.  Saturday I will hang out with him and my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, and then go to a body scan and resting metabolic assessment at 1:30 in Holladay.  I will likely head back afterwards to hang out more with them, and after dinner come back home to spend the evening chilling with my buddy from out-of-town, as he leaves the next day.  Then on Sunday, I plan to head back up to the city to spend more time with my Dad until it's time for him to head to the airport, and then go back home to prepare for next week.

A report of all that will follow.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Tusk and Hammer

Waltz on the Wild Side

The day yesterday was quite productive.  I got some 1:1 training with someone on my team, and got to show him how to do some endpoint automation, and some of the obstacles we have to overcome.  I explained that hitting the endpoints weren't enough, but database confirmation was needed, and the breadth/depth of the testing became more evident.    The day previous to this, I inched a couple things over, but overall seemed like nothing got done.  Yesterday I pushed one thing really far, and it feels like it was a more productive day.

I got some information back from our architect on some easier authorization, and now we just have to connect to the database, and we'll have the framework all ready to go.

I keep feeling a bit impatient with one of my team members -- I've decided to provide snacks to the department, and he has to talk whenever he comes in to get something.  And it always pulls me out of whatever I'm doing, and it's just a bugger to get back into what I was focusing on after he pulls me out to tell me something random while collecting a bag of chips.  It's difficult to say to him to stop being so friendly, but I know I invite some of this by hosting the snacks from my office.  I'm looking forward to a decompression room that we can put this kind of stuff in and make the need to say things just go away.

Strings of Integers

I was at the gym, and had the suspicion that the guy who jumped on the eliptical next to me might try and take my phone.  He kept glancing over at my phone as it rested on the screen in front of me, blocking the view of my progress.  I was trying to imagine what he'd likely try and do, and try to figure out ways to counter it, and how far I'd be willing to go with it.

I sometimes ran faster when he darted glances over at it, and slowed down when he didn't.  I ran 1.76 miles in 20 minutes, a bit faster than the last run, but not as great as my best of 1.83.  I still got through it, and was very tired when I completed.

I met up with friends at a BBQ place, and then we watched a movie, since my Internet was down.

We got done, and it was my bedtime, so I said good night to them, and went to bed, where I tossed and turned.  I woke up a half dozen times for various reasons, and my lucid dreams had me convinced that some faulty Javascript code was what was causing my stuffy nose in real life.  It seemed logical at the time, but now it just seems silly.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Caveats and Conviction

The Slippery Disc

Yesterday was an okay-ish day.  It's amazing how hindsight shifts the day from being, in the moment, a horrid experience of despair and disharmony, and can make you think that things were actually okay.  I know they weren't, as I nearly bit off several heads, and was even so short with myself to identify that talking to people was probably a bad idea.

The silver lining from the day was that someone whom I had given advice to in the past as a new director of a department, to not allow for his resources to be simply swindled away, had been thinking on how to get me one of his resources.  Really, it was a bit of a shock, and my short-tempered mentality didn't really allow for that to be taken into account.  So instead of faking it, or putting on the politician's smile, I gave him a forewarning of my mentality and behavior, and he proceeded to empathize and share some of his less-enthusiastic days.  Which I found to be oddly vindicating of then current mood.  Then him saying he thinks he has a way to get me the resource I need, in the manner I need it, made for a sudden increase of hope moving forward.

However, even after that great little exception to the day, I found I kept getting distracted by things and people.  The items on the docket didn't get done, and all progressed a little, but with nothing finishing, it makes for a day afterwards, for reflective reasons, to seem less-progressive than I would have otherwise wanted.  And while I am their boss, facing my team to report on nothing seems like an easily trivialized thing to call into question my capabilities.  I'm not certain if they ever would, but on days like yesterday, where I gave myself a smaller portion than I know I could consume on an average day, and still leave it on the plate, makes me consider myself a bit less grateful than what I expect out of them.

I did, however, make a few calls and setup a few appointments that I otherwise didn't think I was going to have the motivation to make.  I setup a body scan, and a resting metabolic assessment for Saturday.  I called in a prescription refill for some feet stuff.  And even while writing that last line, I took five minutes to get my PTO squared away for my Pop's retirement party in a few weeks.

So, in spite of the crappy attitude, I still had a good-ish day.

Atlas' Shoulders

I went to the gym after work.  I figured after people left, I'd get more focused and more done, but the last two hours went by so much faster than I had anticipated.  I got to the gym around 6:30 in the evening, and had my first full day of chest, triceps, and shoulders.  The previous week, when I started this, I mistakenly did some biceps, and not as many chest exercises, so it felt a bit incomplete.  Same with having done biceps on Monday, trying to do them on Wednesday was a bit rough.  And then Friday I thought the gym didn't close, but found out at 11:30 in the evening when I rolled up to a darkened interior that it did close on weekends.  So my leg day was a bit ruined by that.

My right shoulder had been sore all day, and rotating my hand up at a 45-degree angle was painful.  It made various exercises difficult, but I pushed through them, thinking it was a pinched nerve, or overly worked muscle from last week.

I got my chest good and exhausted, and then my triceps fell apart before I finished my third of the four schedule exercises.  I didn't try the fourth since it could have ended badly with how my right shoulder was doing.  Shoulders were last, and already quite fatigued, but I pushed through it, and recorded everything in an app for future tracking and progress measurement.

I've started spinning up recorded and tracking, as part of the more scientific approach to the venture than I've done in the past.  I usually take a bit more of a spiritual approach, incorporating more of the "think positive" style, instead of acting positively.  Which is great and all until the days I feel positive and destroyed by weight gain.

However, I'm hoping that with the body scan on Saturday, and how much I've been slowly accelerating towards this start, and frequent body scans afterwards, I should be able to tell how the weight management is actually going.

The evening was filled with episodes of Hawaii Five-0, and then to bed around 10, per my schedule.  Decent enough sleep was had that, while fatigued, I'm not necessarily tired.  Today is a shorter day at the gym, with 20-30 minutes of cardio, and then I'm done.  My friends from AZ might come join me.

Just doing whatever I can to keep my mind off things until after Thursday.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

A Simple Solution

Cubing the Gleam

I didn't do a post on Saturday to reflect on Friday, but I'm doing one today for the weekend in general.  I'm not going to lie -- my disclaimer for this post is that I'm feeling abnormally irritable today.  I don't really know why.  I'd like to blame it on lack of sleep, or lack of dreams, or lack of... just so much, but that's hard to do when I know last week was just so much worse.

I guess if I took a look at everything coming up, I'm trying to get my portion of my parents' retirement party in order, and realizing that with my Pop in town this weekend, that means I have next weekend only to get the things done.  I also need to schedule some stuff for Saturday that I haven't done anything about yet, and get a script refilled at the pharmacy, along with submitting time to go to WA in 3 weeks, researching cameras for my Pop, sending him recommendations, and then committing on a weekend to head down to install them, get them connected, and to a place they can watch from out-of-state.  All of that while I'm entertaining guests from out of state this whole week, trying to stay active with my exercise plan, not get too depressed, and figure out ways to progress the team at work without sacrificing too much along the way.  And trying to do that while getting frequent new ideas to discuss on how to make it better from those whom would rather sit and discuss for two hours on something that takes an hour to do, instead of just doing it and moving on.

My weekend was fine, filled with random adventures, and being out of the house.  That was good for me, but my thoughts were plagued with the things that I don't know I'm not doing, and how to identify that and more closely mimic the behaviors of others.  And then considering going to a therapist to talk about things, but fitting that into my current schedule, with what's coming up, just feels like it's not going to work out too great, and likely skew the results of whatever it is we discuss.  Even on days like today, I'm certain going in would make me lose my temper, or at least some faith in my perception of self to be upfront and honest and instead be a bit withholding so as to not burn a bridge before plans start to be put down about it.

Optimus Sign

I saw a buddy whom I haven't seen in 18 months.  I don't typically talk to him much, since we typically share the same stories and discuss the same things that we did in the previous chat.  It gets a bit mundane.  And, like a movie that you frequently watch, but only enjoy a few parts of, when the generally less interesting parts come up, you tend to zone out, or see if you can speed them up.

Well since it had been so long, we had a lot to share, none of which was typical.  So it was good, and missed, and found myself wanting to reach out again in a few weeks to see how he was doing.  But perhaps I should let him know that reminiscing about high school is just so far out of my mind I get a headache getting back into it.  Maybe he'll be okay with it?  He married very soon after serving an LDS mission, so for him, high school was his last instance where he was making decisions for him.  For me, those decision happen each day.  We're in vastly different places and states of mind that sometimes drawing on those differences can help in seeing why we keep jumping back, but I never really find it helpful.

I don't know what to say or do.

And my mind keeps going back to therapy.  See, I prefer female massage therapists because guys see me, and just presume that since I'm a big dude, they have to rip into me super hard, and it's always painful.  I've gotten massage from a dozen men, and they always ignore my request to lighten up on the pressure.  When I'm dealing with men in a seemingly sympathetic role, I find them less easy to communicate with or rely upon.

I think I'd prefer a female therapist, but not certain if I'd feel comfortable talking about sexual frustrations, without it tapping into something that would likely cause sexual frustrations in that moment.

I'm just making everything more difficult today.  I don't know why.  I guess the theme for today is, "I don't know, and I don't know why I don't know."

I did watch some coverage over that flight from 2009 that crashed in the Hudson, and how it all went down.  Teared up a few times, and even had some anxiety I had to push through.  Perhaps I just need a good cry to help me unwind.

We'll see.

That's all for today.

Tigers and Titans

The Room at the End of the Hall

There's nothing really quite like being sleep-deprived in repeated days.  The sensation of being more tired than when you went to bed, concatenating on itself over and over through an entire week leaves you in a place that suggests that perhaps thinking shouldn't be your primary means of inspiration, as it tends to be lacking very seriously.

You see, with alcohol, it seems to disrupts your brain's ability to fully formulate thoughts.  Your synapses don't consistently fire, and the missed connections are like lag spikes in video games, without the sudden "catch up" that is experienced.  You simply miss small chunks here and there, and over time, you realize you can't see the full picture.  You can piece together little portions together and semi-understand what is going on, but the more you drink, the more you miss, and the more likely you are to interpret what is being missed.

With overt exhaustion, everything is just moving slower, in spite of how quickly things seem to go.  You remember it all later, but in the moment you are really just a passenger in the vehicle that is your mind.

That's where I am today -- a passenger, leaking from my face, my mind, my fingers.  I once wrote a short story about this frame of mind, which I experienced often in college.  The story went with a man trapped in a room with a door, a window, a light, and a light switch.  The closer he got to the window, the less real it became, and more like a TV you watched through.  The door was locked, and seemed to be locked by the light switch.  So turning off the light opened the door, but that would be bad, because something was trying to get in.  Something bad.  The version of me that takes over when I sleep.  And through my various musings with this creature, I've learned that him taking over would be a terrible thing.

Centuries of Storms

I had some friends from Arizona suddenly decide that they were going to be visiting Utah.  One would stay for 7 days, and the other for 10.  I made as many preparations as I could in the shorter timeline, given our current death march, my trying to provide some ease-of-mind for my colleagues, and still hitting the gym.

The gym was fine, but I was working harder for the 20 minutes, and still did poorer than even last time.  I was surprised at the end result, despite my larger sweat line.  I decided not to read to far into it, but maybe am now starting to realize something which may have played a factor.

I went to Costco after the gym to pick up bulk snacks and drinks for my department.  And while walking around I felt as though I had some phlegm built up in my throat, but couldn't dislodge it.  It also seemed to hang out right around the area that my throat seems to being pinched by my thyroid enlargement.  So with the pressing from my thyroid, or the growth on it, with this thick mucus now starting to cover up or inhibit the already inhibited air flow, I began to feel dizzy, short of breath, like I was inhaling hard, but only a little coming through.  My lungs were fine, so it wasn't asthma.  It was an entirely new sensation, and it gave me plenty of anxiety.  That coupled with oxygen deprivation, and physical fatigue from exercising, and I was having a very hard time.

I considered going home to take some prednisone, a lung steroid, because it would help to open my throat a bit, and maybe assist with clearing things up.  I decided to not go so far, and drank some caffeine, as it's supposed to do the same, but just not as severe.  The drink may have loosened or moved whatever it was past the internal obstruction, because I started to feel better pretty quickly.

But doing that, with exercise, stocking up work snacks, and then getting home around 8:30 to eat dinner, and then try and motivate myself to clean things up a bit was a rather difficult task.  A friend helped me out, as he regularly stays at my place, to avoid driving the 90-minute one-way distance home each day.  

And by the time they arrived, I had most things setup for them.  Greeting them, showing them their places to rest, and sending them the wireless connection details left me with about 5 hours left before my alarm was going to go off.  I still tossed and turned, per usual, slipping out of existence with just over 4 hours to spare, and kept being awoken by thunder.

Pooh Stuck in the Hole

The dreams were a bit stressful as well -- always in places with issues needing resolving, and asking where I can help, but nobody ever allowing me to.  I resolved to sitting nearby and watching the world unravel, not knowing what to do.

A storm rolled in, and I heard that it was quickly building into something that would have worried the chasers from the movie "Twister."  I jumped into my car, which looked to be what my mind would translate to be a Nova.  It barely started up when the call over my ham radio that increased friction in the air and sudden downpour of rain was causing frequent and powerful lightning blasts in the area.

I began to drive as the sky went from foreboding to outright destructive with the rain and other contents raining down.  I braced myself for a lightning blast, when one hit about a hundred feet up the road, and the brightness and impact made me temporarily deaf, and shook the earth around me.

I noticed I was driving on my street I grew up on in Uintah.  A nearby horse pasture was filled with people cutting down trees, with larger bases than my car, and explaining that in spite of the buckets of water, other areas reported fires burning stronger in the rain, and destroying entire towns.

Asking to help, I wasn't surprised to find I wasn't useful, and moved to the next area, just trying to track the storm and see if someone was caught off enough to warrant my presence.

It never happened, and I woke up with a nearby strike rumbling through the skies and catching me by surprise.

My alarm went off this morning, and nothing seemed fair.  I legitimately considered calling in for a half day just so I could get all my sleep, but decided against it.

And now here I am... trying to wake up, but never quite realizing just how asleep I really am.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Crutches and Kalimbas

Losing Days, but not Time

I didn't create a post yesterday, due to the nature of the day, and the time that just wasn't available to me to do it.  Or maybe I did create a post, and I really can't remember right now because of how tired I am.  Nobody should ever be this tired and expected to function nominally.  Nobody should ever be caged.  Instead, here I go again on my own.

If I did miss yesterday, I lost the day, but still have the time to write down my feelings, having experienced them, and thus allowing me to reflect on them.  Except for doing it now allows me the super power known as hindsight to guide me on the journey.  I suppose for those reading at the various intelligence agencies I'm now apparently writing to, this is my first betrayal as a writer to you as the reader.  The concept that I've held myself to for these over time is that of an unfiltered barrage of thoughts, holding true to the notion that none of you can make me happy, so why would I give you the power to make me sad?  And using that notion to support the idea of unfiltered commentary, because if it offends any of you, it's held within my own Terms of Use to myself to simply not care about that.

With all of that being plated, arranged, and sent out with the server, I shall now begin to prepare and the main dish.

Stress -- a word that does a great job of sounding like its definition.  It's a word easily stuttered over because of the emphasis on the letter S, a relatively soft sound, interrupted immediately by a very hard T, falling off immediately into a soft R, and while the letter E tends to be soft, since it falls between two soft letters, it almost interrupts the pattern and flow to the point that it becomes a hard E.  It's almost like the word is fighting against itself, and causing the thing in which the words is meant to denote, just in the way that the letters are arranged.

What are you doing, Dave?

I was sitting in a theater with some friends, about to see a film "Mission Impossible: Fallout" and a previous for "2001:  A Space Odyssey" came on, looking like they were going to be showing it on the big screen again.  It led with the orangish/redish light that represented the visual construction of HAL's personality.  And I started to fall.

My heart rate jumped from calm to pre-heart attack in a second, and my breathing became irregular.  The preview played, and I did everything I could to reason my way around it, telling myself it couldn't be, because nothing was to be worried about.  I thought of being in space, void of interaction and friction, and closed my eyes, and felt myself starting to calm, only to open my eyes, see everyone else, and feel as though I was surrounded.

I told my friend, whom I went with, that I might have an anxiety attack.  He told me he'd move if I needed to leave, and I was very grateful for that.  I was hoping that by telling him, the episode would dissipate, as though the embarrassment of having to share that was the tribute required to make it go away.  But it persisted.

Even into the movie, where things started off relatively calmly, until the first close-up gun shot rang out, and startled me so bad that my heart seemed to be kickstarted by the shock of having been inside my own mind, only to be jolted out.  Throughout the remainder of the movie, during times of extra suspense and thrill, I found the anxiety dip into non-existence, only to rise again during calming discussions on plans.  I triaged the issue into being a chemical imbalance, where adrenaline would fix it.  So all I had to do was try and keep my adrenaline up as high as I could throughout the entire movie.  It worked well enough, but still distracted from the intent of the film -- to entertain.  I was just so grateful to be back in my car afterwards, I can't say I was entertained, even though I thoroughly enjoy going to the movies because of the detachment from reality it provides to me.

They also provide fuel for my subconscious to draw on for my dreams, which I've already illustrated to be very vivid, detailed, and sublimely helpful to me and my sanity.

Synergistic Mathematics

When one arm lifts a weight, and then the other arm lifts a different weight, you might think that together they can lift arm1 + arm2.  However, that never proves to be the case.  Instead, you find yourself with something like "botharms = 1.2(arm1 + arm2)" where together they can lift more proportionately than either arm on its own.  It's a very strange thing to consider, but it has some value to be recognized.

Work has become a thing involving synergistic mathematics, not because that sort of math applies, but because it's the only form of math that is conveniently present enough to come close to the strange calculations and assumptions being presented to me.

As an example, we were told that we have two main projects to work on, and project A requires 25% of our resources.  Project B gets the other 75%.  However, Project B has the greatest import to the company, so it gets the most focus, along with the more resources.  That's to say that the quality and quantity of the resource is higher in Project B than in A.  Now, if we were to measure how they had compared over time, it would show that Project A has actually had closer to 20% of the resources.  That seems to lead to Project A actually now getting more focus, despite Project B requiring the resources.  And with this new plan, Project B should get done faster.

Despite my attempts to show why that won't be the case, I've been told to conceptually agree with it.  And so the only form of math I can think of, without incorporating the chaos of String Theory, is synergistic mathematics.  And hope that someone, a slight shift of who works on what and how often will someone make up for the difference.

I'm not fooling myself -- I just can't apparently do anything about it.

High-Fiving the Sky

I allowed my knowledge of needing to perform more cardio get to me, and I only ran for 20 minutes, instead of my typical 10-11, but only got to 1.83 miles, where in the past I would have been in the 1.93-ish area around that time.  Knowing I couldn't go hard for 10 minutes and sprint out the rest made for a less-enthusiastic run, and less-than-nominal results in the end.  But that's okay, because I still went to the gym, and still exercised.

And it came right after a discussion with a family member about the aliens on the plane.  I found out that aliens on the plane was something they were dealing with, and the discoveries they had made, along with my own, led me to a place that made me feel a little more level-minded about the whole ordeal.  Without giving up too much of that kind of information, I can say that I'm feeling more mentally calmed.  That may also be a side effect of the lack of sleep I'm currently staving off.

My gym activity after all that wasn't as vigorous either, having been a bit of a repeat from Monday's, since I started doing biceps then, and last night really destroyed them.

My arms were so dead and tired after doing biceps that doing things for my back seemed less possible.  I actually gave up in the middle of my third set on my second of five back workouts, because I just didn't have the energy left.  After discussion aliens, having a good cry, playing with my 3-month old nephew, and driving for a couple hours, I was beat.  I was also starting my workout at my bedtime, so my mind and body had already started to become a bit lethargic... like Waldo.  I am feeling rather sore today, adding to the strain of still not being asleep.

The take-away is that I did it.  I went to the gym, despite the horrible inconvenience, and while I'm tired now, once I make it through the day, I will sleep tonight.

And that sounds like something to look forward to.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Dreamscapes and Chemistry

The Morning Of Pill

This is coming on the day following my last post.  I'm not going to lie -- yesterday was really tough.  I was dealing with a lot of things, in both my work and personal life, and the general dumpage that occurred from both to me at the same time caused me to seriously question and consider existence as I knew it.  Nothing like having an existential crisis like finding out that my only purpose was to pass the butter, and nothing with the cosmic implications of infinite space, and my general purposelessness of it.  Instead, it was a means of addressing how I would exist, given certain worst-case scenarios, which seemed impossible before, but because suddenly very real and very possible in really just a few hours.

To give an example of what this would be like, imagine you are on a plane in mid-flight, and you're worried about turbulence, and scenes from that TV show "LOST" go rattling through your mind, and you're considering things like crashing, and where the exit row is, and how many steps to get there, and potential individuals who may freak out and try and stop you from escaping, like a drowning person trying to kill their rescuer in how they panic.  And all this is going through your mind when suddenly the plan simply stops in mid-air like a time-freeze has taken place, the hull door is removed by some magical force, and aliens board the ship, only to start injecting a substance into everyone else's necks.  You look around, confused that nobody is reacting, and discover you are the only one that is seemingly conscious throughout this.  And upon calling out to the aliens, they get nervous, leave the vessel, close the hatch, and fly away, unfreezing time, and nobody but you is any the wiser about what just happened.  Now, for the rest of the flight, bumps aren't really your concern.  Instead, you're terrified that the people injected will suddenly start throwing up blood, turn into a giant mutated creature, or explode like bombs, and you're just plain terrified.

That's basically how yesterday felt.  I went from, what I would consider to be rational concern for things that were unlikely, but possible, to not even caring about those worst-case scenarios, because I learned so much stuff that life-defining events could be soon coming on the horizon which would make my previous notions and concerns seem like a child's concern for a doll that wasn't served tea at a tea party.

After Work

I went to the gym, starting my new regiment, and realized mid-curl, after 3 sets of other curls, that I was doing biceps on triceps day, and I'd already been working my chest.  I opened my phone to see what I had already done, and what I had left, and stopped doing biceps, switched over to tris, and figured I'd just redo biceps on Wednesday, and regret the additional soreness over the weekend.

I got good an tired, and felt my various muscle groups begin to tighten and fail as I got to the end of my reps.  I tried to remember what I did, as I haven't recorded anything in a book or app yet, and left the gym feeling like I'd appreciate being sore on Wednesday, just in time for biceps and back.

I got home, ate some leftovers I had made, grabbed a 20 oz soda from the store, with some little bits of beef jerky, and a small chocolate bar -- plain old Hershey's.  I'd usually grab a pack of sodas, a large bag of jerky, and a giant Symphony, but I'm lowering the quantity right now.  And the beef jerky was a 1.5 oz bag, not a 3 oz bag, so it's even smaller than you may be thinking.

Overall, what I ate didn't seem to be as much as I traditionally would have had, and I aided the evening with some of Grandpa's cough medicine because of some stress that I mentioned earlier.  A friend came over and brought me ice cream, and we watched some TV while talking about work and life.  I felt myself dozing off around ten in the evening, and took my leave to bed.

The Road to El Narnia

I really enjoy sleeping.  As a kid, my parents used to marvel at how I could fall asleep virtually anywhere.  I wish I could do that as an adult, but now, if I wake up at five and there's enough light coming in through my window, I am up for the rest of the day.  It's a curse.  One of the greatest inventions I've spent arts and crafts time on was a short shower curtain rod I jammed into my window, with a towel draped over either end, so I tightened with the rubber at the ends pushing into fabric into the wall, and the towel was thick enough it blocked out almost all light when I attached a similar rod to the bottom.  I could sleep until eight or nine and wake up feeling like a hundred bucks.

In the most recent of days, my mind is throttling so hard with things about the next day, that most nights I basically pass out instead of use a routine to fall asleep.  And I find I don't get the best of sleep when I do that.  I took a trip to Colorado a few years back, and self-medicated, and felt like I went on a three-week vacation that only lasted for three days.  It was awesome.

However, I currently live in a state with that medication marked as illegal, and can't really use that in lieu of a sleeping pill.  And sleeping pills tend to make me fairly useless the next day, so I avoid them.  The closest thing I can find is NyQuil, which means I'm using it not for the assistance with a cough/cold, but because the alcohol content helps calm me down, making it easier to sleep.  So instead of using the nasty, and expensive Nyquil, I've found something else to help do the trick.  I don't do it a lot, but once a month or two months I'll take down my bottle, take a few sips, and then allow myself to float down into sleep as my mental synapses fail to fire and keep the worry-machine running.

Last night was a great candidate, so I did it.  The results were great.

I had a dream that lasted for days.  I remember specific days passing in the dream, along with daily activities, and things we were trying to figure out.  I had basically found myself in a post-apocalyptic world, but wasn't caused by bombs or disease -- instead something akin to mass alien abductions or a rapture had taken place.  And I was standing by a canyon that had shacks and trailers all along the canyon walls going down, up the other side, and so on for as far as I could see, in a Pueblo-esque formation that made me think that this desert I was in was somewhere inside New Mexico.

And urban sprawl hadn't factored in, as the side-to-side expansion of this setup was very straight, almost like someone in the military had drawn-out and enforced the width of this settlement with anal focus and determination.

The people I was with were dressed in a pseudo-"Waterworld" type of garb, but covered in dirt and dust.  Not unlike "Mad Max," but less thrown together.  Everyone also seemed confused at what was going on.  In hindsight, one may be able to argue that since none of us knew why we were dressed in this manner and all equally as confused, perhaps all parties involved were other people in the world sharing the same dream.  That's a notion I hadn't considered before.  Suppose that nightmares I have are delicious dreams that psychos have, and we're sharing the dream together.  That would be an interesting story.

But we foraged around this deserted community for a few days, trying to piece together what we could figure out, and then people/creatures showed up, and starting roll-dozing the community over.  Not bulldozing, but roll-dozing, like in the movie "World War Z" where the zombies all climb over and against each other like a rolling wave of flesh devouring everything it its path.  These people/creatures were in and on vehicles and motorcycles.  They would slam into a trailer, and it would start rocking, and others would hit it, and tip it a bit, and the more that hit it, the further it would tip, until enough were hitting into it and pressing against it that it would fall over.

And they proceeded to do this in our direction, so we began to run.  We ran into a large warehouse, and upon reaching the other side of the door, found we were in a family fun center, and it was filled with people.  We turned to look outside, and everything was back to normal.

We split up to explore around, fending off the strange looks we got from our strange clothes, and I found a room which looked like it was built in the theme of Mario Kart on Nintendo 64.  It was very cartoony, and offered some of the portraits you can see around the castle found there.  I heard familiar voices, and found my department at work milling around some cartoon motorcycles and buggies, and realized they were the Mario Kart vehicles.  We all jumped into different ones and took off on an elaborate track that seemed as big as 37 Costcos stacked on top of each other.  We all quickly got separated, finding various shortcuts and easter eggs, and after a couple of hours racing around, I couldn't find anyone else.  The fun was starting to wane, so I jumped out of my kart, snatched up a banana someone had placed down, started to eat it, and found an exit door to go through.

On the other side was a hotel resort of sorts.  High pillars of wood, with mirrors as decorations going up and around the pillars helped to sustain the large room.  My family called out to me from a nearby table, and told me to get food.  I saw a table in front of me, and people with cafeteria trays lining up to make their selections.  I grabbed a tray, made a few sensible selections, because of my diet, and proceeded to the checkout, where two registers were being worked by one girl.  Two lines, mirroring each other, met together on opposite sides of an island, with registers facing each respective line.

The cashier got done with the person ahead of me, and switched to the person in the other line, whom had a ridiculous amount of food on a couple trays.  She started to slowly tally up everything, trying to make sure she didn't miss anything.  I was already tired from all the racing and surviving a post-apocalyptic world, and my family was waiting, so I leaned over the counter to look at the register to see if I could divine how it was setup.

The interface seemed easy enough, so I rang myself up, hit the payment button, slid my card, and got my receipt.  As I walked away, the cashier turned, tried to accuse me of stealing, and then hacking the system.  Her manager got involved, and after some discussion, I figured it was too much of a hassle, so I pushed my tray into their arms, and turned to leave, only to find myself with some people from my past.

i was now standing in someone's home, but whose house, I didn't know.  All the people around me were from work, but not as they are today, but as they were nearly a decade ago.  Some of them no longer work where I do, but it was nostalgic to see them.  I wasn't any younger, but everyone else seemed like a younger version of themselves.

I ran into a woman who was admittedly older than I was, even taking a decade off her current age, and was pleasantly surprised to see her.  I greeted her, and we chatted, but got distracted, and invited me over to her place later that evening to catch up.  The way she put it led me to believe that we'd be talking, and using our mouths for other things also, *wink wink*.

So I went to the garage to get a drink from a fridge out there, and turned to see another woman.  This one, with about a decade advantage on me back then, was basically my current age in this scenario.  We talked, and she teased, and it was a really pleasant time.  I was stoked about what was going to happen later that evening, and relayed the excitement to her.  And she made a pass at me.

Now before you think that this is going to turn into a sex dream -- it doesn't.  She made a pass, and I made a move, and we kissed and held each other tight.  Almost unnecessarily tight for the moment and event -- like she was hugging through the dream into my reality as I was in bed sleeping, and letting me know it was all going to be alright.  The worry of someone walking into the garage while we held each other was a concern, but led to the excitement and grandeur of the moment.  When we released, we opened the fridge to cool down, as the garage was already muggy in the summer heat, and she asked me to come over to her place later.  I reminded her of my engagement, and she said we would leave now so I could make my other appointment.

I thought this to be highly considerate, and incredibly unlikely.

Now, you've already seen that my mind/brain doesn't seem to function in the same way as I perceive others' to work.  And when I'm in dreams, if I identify I'm in a dream, I can end up having a lot of fun.  But for the most part, I behave in dreams like I would in reality, with all my cautions and concerns, until I identify it is fake, and then pretend I'm in a computer game and run around naked.

The post-apocalyptic world didn't make me think it was a dream, because I honestly believed that was possible.  Running into a warehouse only to find the old world is gone could be a side-effect of some narcotics.  Based on our clothing and situation, it isn't beyond reason to believe we had all just come from Burning Man.  Being in a fun center, a themed go cart track is something I'd hope fun and even expect.  A door leading out from the track to another part of the facility, maybe food, is believable because the layout doesn't have to make sense.  My current townhouse has a half bathroom right outside of a bedroom with an a different, adjoining bathroom to it already, and no other bedrooms on the floor.  Makes zero sense, but it's there.

Lastly, simply not realizing that I wasn't in a resort, but actually watching one of my home videos while standing at a potluck at a coworker's home also seemed like a logical thing for me to break out of and realize I'm staring into my mind instead of a boring work party.

I would have seen those people, and had some teasing conversations, and all of that seemed on-par for me, and what I could reason through in life, generally speaking.

The part that started to make me realize I was in a dream was when a woman whom I had developed a minor crush on offered to take me home with her, so I'd have enough time to make it to a different woman's home later that same night.

That has never even come close to brushing with reality for me, and I started to see that perhaps drugs didn't give me a weird daydream, and I was standing with her in a dream.  And as this started to dawn on me, I heard my alarm through the air, and it wrapped around my torso and wrenched me out of the dream, as I fought and kicked against it, just to stay in that moment with her.

I lost, and was now awake, and very tired, having just been ripped out of REM sleep.

The Culling

I was lying in my bed, having turned off my alarm, hoping I'd slip back into the clutches of sleep, and back to the fridge's cool air and her smile, and just couldn't do it.

Sure, I was sad, but I realized that something had changed from the previous night to now -- all of the stress I had been feeling and dreading, was all but gone.  I realized that having even a fake, temporary relationship with someone, generated the chemicals within my body to mimic what that would actually feel like (similar to how your body "believes" during a nocturnal emission that it's time to reach the top of the mountain with no external stimulus) I had actually found someone to be with.  Even if that time was temporary or fleeting, it did enough for my body chemically to really help with the stress I was under.

It was a very strange moment, for my subconscious to create a scenario for me, in which I could feel companionship and love beyond what is found in a family, and use that to help me cope with the incredible stress I was feeling.  Usually, my subconscious is a dick, having me battle every nightmare from here to the darkest recesses of religious versions of hell.  But this time, I got to have exactly what I needed, and it felt incredible.

Again, we didn't have sex.  There was the prospect of sex, but since it was never had, we can all agree that's not a good feeling.  But simply having someone hold me tight, whom wasn't a family member, and someone that I really wanted to hold tightly back, was incredibly cathartic for me.  And the result, using the metaphor from earlier in this post, I just didn't care about aliens, or injections, or even planes in that moment.  And it has carried with me throughout the day.

In my current physical state, I'd love to find a companion, but it would be very difficult.  So it has transferred into motivation to exercise.  And with myself already struggling with the new routine after 5 weeks, this new motivation was REALLY needed as well.

As for why I don't think I can cultivate a good relationship right now, perhaps I'll save that for a different post.  Perhaps tomorrow's.  This is already rather long, and I've got to go to the gym before a movie I'm going to see with some friends.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend