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