11.30.2011
Long Days
So, for reasons that are entirely my own choosing, I've been starting to work ten and eleven hours days. Every day after work, I head over to my rented office and spend another two hours working on my writing. So I'm not getting paid, well at least in the coin of the realm and at the moment, who knows what finishing this project will bring?
11.23.2011
Back on the wagon
I made a decision at the start of the year on two separate, but related matters:
1. I needed to lose weight
2. I needed to start exercising
They look like the same goal, don't they? But I had different reasons for each one. I had slipped over 300 pounds again on the scale and my back problems were flaring it up, making it hard for me to sleep and get around in a day, so I wanted to lose some weight. But I was also feeling really low in my energy, crawling to bed and collapsing each day. I wasn't doing anything that was healthy, and it was all just rolling together in a great mass of fucked up. But I changed it: I started going to the gym and watching what I ate. I spent some time with a personal trainer, built a routine for weights and spent a half hour doing cardio each day. I felt worlds better.
Then I lost my job. Those who've gone through that kind of experience know what a blow that is to your self-esteem. I tried to keep going to the gym, but it just slipped further and further down compared to finding a job and working on writing, which at least felt productive. So by the time I got a job again, I was hitting the gym maybe twice a week. Then I stopped altogether when I started working again. I was on my feet all day, in shoes that my feet hadn't adjusted to yet, so I had sharp pains in the sides of my feet at the end of each day. Going to the gym in a situation like that seemed out of the question. And when you add that to a bouncing schedule, I found plenty of excuses to let myself wuss out of my personal commitments.
But that needs to change back to the way it was. I was on a good track, making progress before I got derailed, and I've got some things that I can do to get back on track. A good friend has been doing the same thing I've been to lose weight, but he's been able to keep it up and has lost a good deal of weight. The site that he uses to keep track is the same one that I used, so that adds a social aspect to it that might help me stay on the wagon.
I can only hope, I felt much better when I was hitting the gym everyday. I just need to figure out what gym to get back to and wether the gym becomes something I do before the office or something I do after I've spent my time in the office working on the book.
1. I needed to lose weight
2. I needed to start exercising
They look like the same goal, don't they? But I had different reasons for each one. I had slipped over 300 pounds again on the scale and my back problems were flaring it up, making it hard for me to sleep and get around in a day, so I wanted to lose some weight. But I was also feeling really low in my energy, crawling to bed and collapsing each day. I wasn't doing anything that was healthy, and it was all just rolling together in a great mass of fucked up. But I changed it: I started going to the gym and watching what I ate. I spent some time with a personal trainer, built a routine for weights and spent a half hour doing cardio each day. I felt worlds better.
Then I lost my job. Those who've gone through that kind of experience know what a blow that is to your self-esteem. I tried to keep going to the gym, but it just slipped further and further down compared to finding a job and working on writing, which at least felt productive. So by the time I got a job again, I was hitting the gym maybe twice a week. Then I stopped altogether when I started working again. I was on my feet all day, in shoes that my feet hadn't adjusted to yet, so I had sharp pains in the sides of my feet at the end of each day. Going to the gym in a situation like that seemed out of the question. And when you add that to a bouncing schedule, I found plenty of excuses to let myself wuss out of my personal commitments.
But that needs to change back to the way it was. I was on a good track, making progress before I got derailed, and I've got some things that I can do to get back on track. A good friend has been doing the same thing I've been to lose weight, but he's been able to keep it up and has lost a good deal of weight. The site that he uses to keep track is the same one that I used, so that adds a social aspect to it that might help me stay on the wagon.
I can only hope, I felt much better when I was hitting the gym everyday. I just need to figure out what gym to get back to and wether the gym becomes something I do before the office or something I do after I've spent my time in the office working on the book.
11.13.2011
My relationship to media
I'm not sure what it is, but I like to partake in media that makes me cry. This isn't exactly a new trend, but it's been true for several years, I enjoy consuming and re-consuming media that pulls such a visceral reaction.
The First Man on Earth, which came up in my random play when I was sitting and reading in the bagel shop earlier, made me think about this. I'm pretty sure I know what it is about this song that pulls at my emotions so hard, the contrast of the untouched nature of the Earth from the last human being alive looking back at how far his race had screwed it all up.
Maybe I'm a sap, I don't know. Maybe I just bottle up enough of these emotions in how I present myself that I seek out catharsis. I know it's one of the reasons why I go back and read several of the later Discworld novels over and over again, while skipping others; some of them have scenes that just stop me and make me tear up.
11.11.2011
11/11/11 Starting from one
So I finally hit a major milestone in my progress writing. I finished the first edit pass.
I also spent this week talking with a friend who maintains multiple blogs of her own, each with a different purpose, who's been stepping back up to them and trying to post on each of them more often. For her each blog is hitting a different part of her personality. Which set me to thinking, because I have a pair of blogs: this one, which has been kicking around for many years, mostly alone and forgotten; and a new one that I set up as a professional blog.
And I think that division of labor might be a good thing, make this my unprofessional blog, where I post on politics, my thoughts on such things and generally ramble because I feel like I need to. I want to get back into updating at least one of these blogs every week day, and I think I can manage that. I've got some thoughts on what's going on right now politically, but I've been stealing sleep from myself for the past few nights, so I think I need to collapse and recover a little bit, then I'll figure out what I'm going to do with my weekend.
I also spent this week talking with a friend who maintains multiple blogs of her own, each with a different purpose, who's been stepping back up to them and trying to post on each of them more often. For her each blog is hitting a different part of her personality. Which set me to thinking, because I have a pair of blogs: this one, which has been kicking around for many years, mostly alone and forgotten; and a new one that I set up as a professional blog.
And I think that division of labor might be a good thing, make this my unprofessional blog, where I post on politics, my thoughts on such things and generally ramble because I feel like I need to. I want to get back into updating at least one of these blogs every week day, and I think I can manage that. I've got some thoughts on what's going on right now politically, but I've been stealing sleep from myself for the past few nights, so I think I need to collapse and recover a little bit, then I'll figure out what I'm going to do with my weekend.
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