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Sunday Church

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Quitting Soda

So, I am 51, and not in the greatest of health.  Broke down, lazy, all of that got me here.  And I am making changes.  The DASH diet is the new model.  But, one thing seemed like something I should take on.  Quitting soda.

Now, to be fair, I do not drink a lot.  Or rather, I do not think I drink a lot.  I drink one mountain dew in the morning, and one soda of some kind with dinner.  The morning dew is about being too lazy to make coffee in the morning.  The thing with dinner, no idea.  Just always been there.

And I drink soda at the movies, if I ever go again.

So, the plan is to transition off of soda, and onto seltzer.  I have been drinking seltzer in the afternoons for about a week now, and I am starting to understand the draw.  Yes, the flavor is LESS full than a traditional soda.  The flavor of a Mountain Dew is surely chemically engineered to be all consuming.  To leave no space.  But seltzer is just a small amount of flavor.  So, it disappears from your mouth faster.  Which I did not get in the beginning, but I get now.

So, I bought 2 8 packs of Bubly, my friends all seemed to suggest it.  Grapefruit, and Orange.  There is no caffeine, so I will have to return to coffee, which I love anyway.

We shall see how this goes.

For the record, I still reserve the right to drink a soda at the movies, if I ever go again.

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Warm Day

IT was 70 today. First real sort of bright day this spring. I did a lot of stuff outside, and I am wiped out. I have been writing a bit more these days. It is on paper, with a pen, and it makes me happy.

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Checking In

It has been a second. I lived through Omicron or whatever it is. I did not do that. I stayed home, did not do anything, and did not see anyone, and that seems to have worked.

I feel great right now. I got back in the pool about a week ago, and in fairness have hit it really hard. I have not missed a day, and some of the swims are far faster and longer than I should be doing. But, the water is cold and the time feels so powerful, I do not want to stop. I have had some strange armpit soreness, which I totally assume is cancer, but really it is swimming. The other day I walked out of a doctors appointment. I was put in the room, and like 40 minutes later nothing had happened. The doctor at one point peaked his head in and said that they were working with another lady. Which was fine. Health care is rife with emergency needs. But, after a while I just did not want to wait, so I left. I do not know if that is a thing people do, or if I am a unique flower, but it felt like the right thing to do. I am settling in on a sort of calm place. I am putting together a vision for my life without being of the world. I think it hurts too much for me. I mean, we just went through a local election, which is always always always ten days of people calling me wanting to talk. Now, these people do not talk to me the other days of the year, but for about ten days, I take their calls often. My friend Mark, really a guy I know named Mark, he calls and asks for a solution to a problem, and he goes off and uses it, and then he calls me and tells me it worked. And I do not see any upside to any of it. And the reality is, this is the way of the world. But, it does not have to be my way. I do not need to be a part of it.

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Catching Up

So, it has been at least ten days since I sat down to type anything.  I am in a point of really interesting emotional grown.   Someone hurt my feelings recently.  And some cool things have spun out of it.

1. This person is not my friend.  So, the deal is that I incorrectly classify people that I know of, or know or something.  I think because I have had a conversation for you, or did a favor for you, or we shared time in the same location, that you and I are friends.  But, we are not.  I want us to be.  I want to have friends, and I think there are people who would be cool to be friends with, but they are not my friends.  If I am being fair, I do not think I have any actual friends, except maybe Eric and Frank.  But, for sure this situation is my attaching some sort of attribute to our interaction, and that attribution falsely led me to assume the social contract.  And that contract means that I got my feelings hurt.

But, if this person is not my friend, then fuck it.  A total stranger, did something that involved me, but should have no consequence to it than that.  Which sucks to think about, but yeah, were not friends.

2. Sadness usually turns to anger for me.  I usually start sort of heartbroken in these situations, and that pivots into anger.  And I make an argument in my head for being angry.  As a younger man, that anger would fuel me.  As an old man, that anger is something I am sparked by, but also hate.  Which is interesting.  I hate it because in that state, I have historically acted out.  Which I have grown to regret.

3. I took an interesting step.  I stopped posting on twitter.  I did not lament and toss about what happened.  I simply pulled back a small thing.  I stopped my online conversations.  This was hard at first, and still probably is.  But, I grew used to it.  And am about a week off of twitter.  I still read twitter, but I do not interact with anything.  I just read.

4. A sort of release of aspiration.  I think that I feel like an outsider, and unworthy, like a hunchback in a bellfry.  This is made worse by a lot of factors.  But, like a hunch back, I see what I Think of as the beautiful people, and I want to be associated with them.  I want them to think of me as one of them.  But, that will not happen.  So why keep trying to be among them.  Just stabilize where I stand, and have that be enough.

5. Far from my core.  Joyless.  I am no where near being who I think of as myself.  I am no where near any sort of personal happiness.  I do not do the things that make me happy, and I do not control my time or anything else.  And a lot of that is simply based on the conditions of the time.  Caring for my mom, covid, etc.  These are not things I can change.

6. The conversation is with me.  I need to do the things, and stop messing about.  I need to be honest with it.  And I need to let the other voices fall away.  Which comes to the twitter thing, to the life style thing.  To all of it.  I need to start telling myself the truth, and be in that.  Otherwise, I am never going to move through it.

I think things are good.  It is quiet.

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Last Straws

I had a great therapy session today, so tonight might be a little added to based on the recovery from that.  We did this thing called a ‘Dinner Guest’ exercise.  IT was super powerful, and direct to a few strong issues I struggle with.  It was great.

I talked to my main man Rob about it, and that gave it some more cool layers, and that conversation helped me feel in the world, with a place.  

But then tonight happened, and just destroyed all of that.  All of the positive forward something or other, that all went away and I am on the verge of laying on the couch with a box of shortbreads and crying until I fall asleep.

What happened tonight was just bad.  I struggle with this idea that I am a big piece of shit.  And what makes it worse is I see evidence that hte world thinks that of me as well.  Tonight that sort of happened.

A couple of weeks ago I sent someone a gift.  They were going through a hard time, and I thought a small token would lighten the load.  I even asked permission from a family person before I did it.  A while back the tracking indicated that the gift arrived, but nothing came of it.  Which is fine, this person is up against it.

Then I got an email from the vendor that the person asked for a label so they could send the gift back.  No one talked to me.  But, there are dozens of photos of this person and gifts they accepted on social media.  But my gift got sent back.

If you are prone to think you are a big ogre that everyone does not value, things like that only reinforce it.

Seriously, all those other gifts are okay, but mine has to go back.  There was NOTHING inappropriate about the gift.  In fact, this person has posted about this thing in the past, that it is something they are interested in.

I am going to inconsolable for a few weeks.  It is incidents like this that confirm to me that I suck, and have no valuable.  That all my desire to be in the world is misguided.

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When you think about the life you built, the stuff in that coffin with you at the end, it is interesting what comes through.  These things have all been with me forever.

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My Twitter Morning

I do not know who THEY are.  The idea that THEY want to silence me, and what not, that does not seem to make sense to me.  I am a 51 year old white guy, and no government body stands in my way from saying anything I want.  And maybe that is not who THEY are, maybe THEY are something or someone else.

I know this morning I felt absolutely the weight of the world on me for a second, and it was in response to 1 tweet, which was in response to my stating my opinion on twitter.  I took my tweet down because I am a coward who really wants to be accepted and embraced and to have some friends.  But, I am not going to.

I knew early on that ‘the world’ wants to crush us, that the ‘powers that be’ want to silence voices of dissent, that conformity wants to destroy the individual.  All those novels in English class, all those shorts stories and poems, and the culture of punk rock and skateboarding showed me that stuff early on.  It created the desire to be the individual, to exist outside of the system, to be free, to be actually free.  But, the world wants to beat that out of us.  And it can, and does like 90 percent of the time I think, and it isolates those other voices and marginalizes them in significant ways.

Now look, I do not have any grand pretense that any of the ideas or things that I say have any merit, or value, or worth.  I do not think anyone cares about this writing now, this act of putting it on tumblr, or the podcast I occasionally do, or anything else.  All the marketing rhetoric about traction and whatever, is all salesmanship.  And I do not have or want to have, anything to sell.

Don’t get me wrong, I want you to think I am cool and right and interesting, and I want you to like me, and be my friend.  And ask me to help, and to give me money, and put me on a pedestal.  But, that has not happened yet.  I have the smallest sliver of success, but no one sees it, and no one cares.  Not even the people who know about it.

But, back to the world and more importantly my place in it.  I do not have people in my life.  I mean, there are a few of you who think you are in my life, but I do not think so.  I mean, COVID gave me the highway to becoming isolated.  Which is fine, and I have to work to make peace with it.  But, isolation is hard.  It is hard for me.  You see, I WANT to be relevant, and interesting, and in and of the world.  But, I am not.

And since I was young, I wanted to have a voice.  My voice.  My unique voice.  And I worked hard on it.  Then at some point I wanted to be respected for my unique voice.  And then it was a nightmare.  It was the wanting it so that hurt me, that probably wrecked me.

A good portion of me thinks that my unique voice only leads to harm, that if I went along and was like everyone else, then good things would come my way.  But, I think that is nonsense.  I think if I simply became a go along get along fellow, I would have nothing to offer even myself.

Today I was critical of my municipalities actions on twitter.  The Mayor, who I support responded to my criticism and pretty much said she was shocked as to what I said.  And the thing is this, I want the Mayor and her network to like me.  So I took the tweet down.  I want the world to like me, so I change myself each and every moment of each and ever day to make me more acceptable, and in fact I knowingly try to make myself invisible.  

Maybe if I do not offend them, maybe they won’t hurt me.  Maybe if the world forgets I exist, maybe the world will not grind me out.  Maybe if I just shut up, someone will like me.

It is what they want, me quiet and afraid.  And I am quiet and afraid.

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Grail Watch Impossible

When I was 15, I put on a Timex Ironman.  It was a swim team decision, a life guard decision, it was looking up to an older guy named Rudy decision.  It would define me, for my entire life, and still defines me.  A large portion of my worldview can travel through the Timex Ironman.  It simply can.

Soon after that STYLE became a thing.  And I got a series of Swatch watches.  But, this is the first one.  And the most prominent.

When I was 16 I lived in Spain for a year, and I wore this watch.  I played more basketball than swam (I might not have swam in Spain at all), and I drank a lot.  On the flight home I gave this watch to a girl from Hannah to remember me.  I wish I had not given it to her, like all forever relationships when you are 16, it ended when we touched down.

And I put the Ironman back on.  And I got back in the pool.  And I did not pay attention to watches until...

This is Ed Harris, in the movie The Abyss.  I loved the movie at the time.  My best friend and I were talking about chucking college and going to learn to be professional divers (we did not do this), and that watch was a thing for me.  It was a time without the internet, so I did not have cool things like this photo, but I had it in my head.  And years later when I had the internet, then we went back.

But, it was still this.

And now it had Indiglo, and it was perfect.  And it stayed on my wrist uninterrupted until the internet happened.  One of these things was with me on every plane ride, every strangers flood, ever seedy adventure, and on all the continents.  It was there.  Always.

Until the internet happened, and I thought this was close to the watch Ed Harris was wearing (it was not even CLOSE), but I put this one for a long time. 

It looks a lot better in real life.  I have given this one away, but it served me well.

Along the way Apocalypse Now happened.  And Apocalypse now brings us to..

which began us on this idea of the GRAIL WATCH.  Which is the one watch that you want, and you wait for, you save up for, if you get it you will be complete.  And you can stop looking at watches.  But, thats a myth.  You see, that Seiko watch is a gazillion dollars.  And along the way, during the pandemic, you start looking at what watches actually are.  And you buy this...

Some call it an homage.  It is a watch that is made somewhere in China, and it has amazing things about it, and is like 1000% less than the Seiko.  It looks the same, it is NOT the same.  But, honestly, I have no idea.  And NO ONE I know knows it is not the same.  And in fairness, if I was wearing the expensive Seiko, no one I know would even know.

But, during the pandemic I went down the watch worm hole.  I learned about GRAIL watches, I learned enough about movements to have an opinion, I learned about cetrification v non certification and the whole bit.  And during the time I developed some ideas of my own.  And these ideas naturally take us to the GRAIL watch thing.  The sort of end all be all of the watch world.  The last watch.  The watch you save up for, and wear with great pride.

While learning about watches, you also learn about the concept of the beater watch.  The watch you wear and just do not care what comes to it.  And for me, they are all beater watches.  I want my watch to be able to be smashed around.  By my old life, by my new life, by all of it.

So my grail watch might be this...

But that costs like 25 thousand dollars, and if it falls off in the lake when I am swimming it is a real problem if I cannot find it.  So, while I like that a lot, it is not the grail.  The grail MUST be a daily driver in all aspects, and I think I got it.  I think I might have it finally.

It ticks a lot of boxes for me.  It is solar, so that is better.  It has some orange on it, and orange is my favorite color since college.  And it has good lume.  So, this feels like it.  The final watch.  I hope so at least.

I mean, I still have this one, now and forever.

[citizendino]

The Mug Issue

This is where we begin.  Not these specific mugs, but this mug.  You see, at UW-Milwaukee when I went there Dining Services issued these when you got a food plan.  So, everyone had one, and we all clipped it to our backpack, so it was everywhere.  We all had it, and it was with us forever.  This is what started me.

And now, I drink coffee when I get up.  I drink tea through out the day.  And I drink 1 Mountain Dew (or Coke) each day with lunch.  And for that I want to maintain a handle.  So, I got to here.

I had a different one for like a decade and even though I am an old man now, I still insist on clipping it to my bag of use for the day or trip or whatever.  Over time and life changes, the closure became paramount.  You see, if you are sleeping in a conversion van, and you fall asleep and your mug falls on the floor, you do not want it to spill.  So I had this.

I really liked that, it was a sort of perfect road thing.  It was available at every Target in the world, so if I lose it (and I did), I could find it easy enough.  And it was good.

Then though, a buddy moved onto a boat.  And that led to a whole other shit show of googling.  He got an old thermos from his grandpa as a going away gift.

And man that is an amazing gift.  The idea of a forever item just pumps me up.  But, he did some research and ended up adding another large thermos thingy to go with the heirloom thing.  And that led to...

Zojirushi.

And Zojirushi is the greatest.

I bought one, and bought one for all my rock show travel buddies.  And it is really the best.  Coffee stays warm forever.  It is super well built, and the locking mechanism is the best.  Sure, it is a bit more complicated than the grandpa thermos, but that is just what it is.

But, here is the thing for me.  I cannot make myself drink cold beverages out of it.  I just feel like that is an abomination.  It is not of course, but it is part of a spectrum of things that I cannot get myself to do for absolutely no reason.

And it does not have a handle.  So, it cannot clip to the bag.  Like when I was 20.  I am not 20.  So, I still have a handled mug.  

I want to be down to a single thing for this sort of thing.  I even found my college insulated mug on promotional printing something or other, and ordered one.  So, now I have that here at my house.  But, the thing does not close, so if it tipped over in the van it would spill.

Mind you, I am not in a van or even travelling for campaign stops.  So, that is just an artificial thing I have left over.

If I could drink soda out of a zojirushi, this would all be okay.  If the zojirushi had a handle, then this would all be okay.

I do not know man.  I do not know how to approach this.

#travelmug #zojirushi #rtic

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Doddering/Feeble

I am 51, and I am starting to feel a disconnect from my sense of self on some loud level, the sense of myself on a quiet level, and the physical realities. I do not feel good. Some times I feel amazingly bad and challenged. These times pass, and frankly given the things in the world are not that big of a deal. For example, for a bit there I had a ache in my right foot that actually kept me awake at night. This leads to this new thing, an awareness of my physical body as something outside of my self. A long time ago I noticed this after standing for a long time, like at a rock show, I would feel discomfort in my right leg, and if the standing persisted I would get a sort of numbness or tingling. As soon as I walked a few steps it went away, but I was experiencing a shift in sensation that had no injury or event that preceeded it. Years ago at a hocky night in Stevens Point, after not playing for years, I felt almost incapable of skating to the point where I just had to sit down. I knew how to skate, but something outside of my sense of self prevented it or the perception was so different I could not resolve it. Years ago I had a cardiac event which led me to the ICU, and medication, and all the stuff that goes with it. It was not a sort of heart attack or stroke thing, but rather it was a slow change in the left ventricle that led to an altered sensation, and upon seeing a doctor, a realization I was in real danger. A lot of people in my life have honestly not seen me since my early to mid 30s when I made a social change in my life. Combine that with my fathers suicide, and I have retreated from the world. In that retreat has been a significant degradation of me as a physical thing. Now though, I am hyper aware of my gait. My stride. There are times when it feels unsafe or wobbly or something. I no longer walk in a way that I consider FLUID or easy. I do not know how to describe it, other than I feel like the connective tissue is shorter than it was in the past. As a result, I am too aware of it, and it has led to this sense of being feeble. I took on the goal of making my phyiscal changes this year, and make that a real thing, and I feel better. Today I went for the longest walk I have had in a long time. It felt SO GOOD. But, it does not erase this sense I have that things are not what they used to be, and that all by itself is a reason to stay the course. To adopt real change, and make my life better. But, man, do I feel different.

[citizendino]

Wanting you to Look at Me

Andrei Condrescu wrote the poem...

The Threat

I am not looking for your jugular.

Only for your eyes.

That isn’t exactly accurate.

I want both. And if you ask, as you should

if you like your self, why do i go for such

ferocious treats, i must

admit

that that there is something unexploded in my gut.

And it wants you because there is

an unexploded something in yours too.

A music box we swallowed when we were children?

The growing up? Which is

learning to handle terror?

Was there something in the food or is

the government responsible for it?

it is nothing I can stick my knife into and say:

“For Sure its this!”

And yet I want it our more than I want these words

------------------------

Something happened today that has upset me.  I am not going to talk about it in any specifics, but I think we are wrapping up a door in my head.  And I am scared about it, so I thought I would type something.

I think I am finishing up on twitter.  Twitter is my only broad sort of social media platform these days.  I left facebook years ago, and have not really adopted anything else.  Obviously I am on GoodReads because, well, I read.  But, other than that, nothing really.

But, I think I am coming to a close on twitter, but I am scared to.  I want the attention.  I enjoy it.  I want to be relevant in the world, and as isolated as I am in real life, twitter is an okay outlet.

But, I do not think it is alligned with the ideas I have about my own life.  But, I want the attention, I want to feel relevant.  I began to feel invisible years ago, and I wonder what my reaction to losing twitter would be.

And that concern is something I do not dig.  I mean, I am writing this on the internet, not sitting quietly meditating about this.  I mean, this will repost on twitter.  So, I do not know what closing the door on twitter even means in practice.

Maybe none of this matters, and I should not wring this to death inside my head. Maybe not everything needs to be a forever declaration.  Maybe I do not need you to talk me out of this.  I have NO IDEA.  But, I think I need to change my twitter.

I am not doing anything.  I do not work in a way that uses twitter.  I do not need anything from anyone on twitter, other than attention and reinforcement.  And I like a lot of people on twitter.  But, I do not know them.  I mean, all of the relationships might just be bots.  I have no idea.  I have met like 4 people from twitter maybe.

I want to matter.  And sometimes I think that is why I am on twitter.  And that is not a good enough reason, in fact that is a negative.  We shall see.

[citizendino]

Off of Center

Proprioception....”Proprioception, otherwise known as kinesthesia, is your body's ability to sense movement, action, and location. It's present in every muscle movement you have. ... Proprioception allows you to walk without consciously thinking about where to place your foot next. It lets you touch your elbow with your eyes closed.”

I am about a month into this physical activity change, and I am fascinated with how off balance my body is in normal daily activity.  Over the last week in meditation it feels like my spine is a staircase, and my head is crooked to the left.  I do not think that is the case, but it is a consistent thing.

Today while stretching the sensation of moving to my left was significantly different than it was moving to my right.  It felt less sure or secure, or more loose and unsafe.  I know I am safe, but it felt like I was weaker.  This is fascinating.

I am starting to take things away.  First, things that are obvious.  Mountain Dew.  Then things that are not, like national news.  Fasting if you will.

[citizendino]

Rough Day Mindset

So I have a semi professional relationship with a group of people, I think (will come through later).  These people and I have worked on some stuff, and in the last 6 months there have been three slights.  Today there was another slight, and it really broke open in my head.

The natural first part of the slight is the anger.  Someone did or did not do you wrong, and you feel anger.  This happened.  I am an old man now, and I meditate every day so I was able to hold that and progress through that sort of thing.  But what is interesting, and so much darker, was what I found.

You see the slights are such that they are exclusionary.  Essentially I know about a party in advance, but my friends invite all my friends and do not invite me.  And now we have done it three times.  Today was made worse because my friends asked me if I was coming to the party, and I had to say that I was not invited, so no I am not coming.

In the past couple of parties I spoke up and said something to my friends.  So they KNEW that I felt slighted.  I mean, I spoke up after the first one.  Then they did it again, and I spoke up again.  And now they did it again.

So I was angry.  Then I was something else.

I mean if there are three parties, and they invite the people you think are your friends and not you...maybe you are not who you think you are, maybe the people you think of as friends are not actually your friends.  Maybe you the asshole crazy guy that everyone makes fun of behind his back.

Look, one of my primary negative emotions is shame.  And I think that is where I am at right now.  I mean, I thought these people were my friends.  Maybe I am just a big loser to them.  I thought I was something, or someone.  Maybe I am not that at all.

Maybe I am just a 51 year old loser who people do not invite to parties because the reality is no one likes him.

I think that might be possible.  I think part of this is I am really deeply isolated.  And I feel shame on so many levels.  Maybe see me as a loser, and as a result this shit happens.

I am in a dark hole.  I know I am because I bought inexpensive chinese food and mountain dew.  And a watch.  I think I am going to be in this hole for a while.

[citizendino]

My Love of Journalists

When I got to college I wanted to be a poet.  As a young man I had been deeply moved by meeting Alan Ginsberg.  And I wanted that free movement through my soul.  I did not think I could be a painter, or a dancer, but I felt like I could write.

In college I studied with people like Antler and Susan Firer and so many others.  Milwaukee had a great open mic scene, and a lot of people who knew each other, and it all came together in the Cream City Review.

In class one day Susan Firer talked about poets as the unofficial legislators of the world.  She talked about the poets gaze giving an object divinity.  How changing how we see something changes us, that thing, and the world.  By allowing that siginficance, the world is altered.  And that alteration is forever.  No matter how small.

Journalists are tough poets.  Hard poets.  Cynical poets.  Poets publishing their poems every day.  Publishing poems every day only to have the world throw rocks at them for the act of looking.  For the act of writing.  Journalists open themselves up to so much criticism, legal issues, community ostracization.  That just do, because they look.  Because they dare to tell a story.

Where I live there are whole swaths of people who believe journalists should simply be public relations voices for the things that they are doing.  That what they are doing, because they are doing it should not be criticized.  Or god forbid, given over to scrutiny.

But, in the broad sense, daily journalism is hard.  But, it is so important to both large and small communities.  Someone needs to write stories, make the history, of a place of a moment.  They have to.

And the ethics applied to journalists make it more important.  I mean, I can type here on tumblr what I think about this or that event.  Or idea, or building, or whatever.  But, journalists can’t.  They have to tell a factual accurate story.  Without themselves.

They document the world.  And they do it in the hardest of times.  Facing the worst bullshit criticism.  They are trapped in a media landscape full of bad actors who are not journalists.  But, they do their work no matter.  And I love them for it.

[citizendino]

About 10 days In

So, I took a few days in the beginning of the year to just sort of wait on my brothers COVID experience.  But, we made some changes, we are going pretty well.

So, first off KETTLEBELL.  I did a little research, and then ended up on youtube, and found a simple enough first month plan.  I just want to reignite or reactivate or whatever.  Just put some stress on some things that have not been stressed.  

I am looking at it as a sort of lap.  Or circuit as the lifters say.  Swimmers say lap.  Or set.  But lap.  It is about 7 movements, and I do X amount of them.  There is a little warm up period that I like.  And then we get in.  I do a few laps.  I do not know if that is the prescribed thing, but I want to feel fatigue, because I do not feel muscle fatigue very often.

I am liking it.  I feel challenged, but not so challenged I am frsutrated.  What is interesting to me is to consider my lifting history, and think about that now.  Looking back, there was a lot of time with weight training.  And I miss it.  Maybe I will be that 55 year old guy who has a squat rack in his garage.  I do not think so, but man I used to love lifting.

STRETCHING.  This has been a few years in the development.  Now, I am doing active stretching after I walk the dog.  So, my body is warm, and I am able to stretch on a deeper level.  My stretching  started off with some stuff from Greg Ormson, and has grown out of that.

The stretching is really emotional.  Which I like.  I am not likely to burst out into tears, but I do stay in the moment, and in the point of stretch LONGER because I feel it both physically and emotionally.

My DIET is evolving.  A lot of it is simply stuff.  Like the 1 bottle of mountain dew I drank in the morning can be replaced by black coffee.  AND I LOVE THAT.  Any excuse to drink black coffee, that is perfect.

I am eating fish.  A lot of fish.  What is cool is my grocery store has more fish than they used to, or maybe I am just seeing it.  Like when you buy a car and see it everywhere.

But, overall I have some pain.  My left heel hurts.  I think there is blister under my stupid and awesome callous.  But, it still hurts.

It has been a good ten days.

[citizendino]

2022 The Little Things

So we are starting the year tomorrow.  I sort of gave a week of recovery from the holiday emotions, and whatever.  It is a tough month, so I thought to take the first week as just a free swim.

So, I am starting the year focused on all the little things.  The small stuff.  Eye drops, flossing, Neti, lotion on my feet, laundry.

Sure, there is all the other things.  Increased walking (which is probably not happening tomorrow since it is a million below zero and the dog will not go out), kettle bell, yoga, diet.  All of that stuff is happening as well.  But, really the thing will be the little stuff.

By focusing on those simple things, the small things, we can find ways to be more human.  More consistent.  More engaged and mindful.  We can do those things, and then those things become habit, and you can build on that.

I mean, there is going to be some big stuff, like cutting out some toxic relationships.  My main homie Shawn Sullivan is who started me on this a lifetime ago, but now lets do it.  Some of you, I am not answering your texts or phone calls.  Sorry.

But a lot of it is going to be the small things.  Flossing, paying bills, whatever.  We start in the morning.