Sunday, June 26: Week 48

If you have any complaint's about life, think about the plight of my neighbor Jennifer. She's been fighting kidney probs since a fairly young age, and about three months ago, they started giving her trouble again. To make a long story short, she's pretty much been out of work, doing surgery's, and hanging out at her moms place in upstate NY. She came back to DC late Thursday night, and was trying to get pumped up about he idea of heading back to work, and her normal life on Monday. On Saturday, she heads over to the Iwo Jima memorial for a nice afternoon in the park, parks her car and is just pulling her keys out of the ignition then, BAM, some loser careens over four lanes and a median and smashes into her car. Totals the car and knocks her silly, showering her with glass and high impact. Next thing she knows she's at the hospital for friggin' 10 hours or so, and comes home pretty freakin' rattled as you would expect.

I went and picked up her mom at the airport this morning, she's not familiar with the area and wasn't confident in being able maneuver her way here, so I figured it was the least I could do. I get here back here, and the next thing I know I get a call and they're both freaking out cuz' there are rats running all over the apartment! And these are two women who don't be liking no rats. I went to the hardware store to score some traps, came back and slathered them up with some peanut butter and put 'em out for some killin'. As it turns out, they weren't rats, just really big ass mice, and for the rest of the day they kept calling for me to come over and get rid of the corpses. It's a good thing I've got such a robust background in rodent removal!

Saturday, June 25: Week 47

Yikes, looks like I missed a few days of posting, which is bad given that I said I wouldn't. I think I got distracted by getting my diet and schedule back on track, and was a bit embarrassed by my lack of production on the novel. I did have the pleasure of my parents visiting on Friday, my Mom was doing a medical test that required that they be in DC at 6:00 am (good god) and return to the hospital at 3:00, so they came over and relaxed a bit while I took off for the gym. After that we scored some lunch and wondered through the local furniture stores (they're into the new house visioning stage). In the Ethan Allan store we were set upon by one of those aggressively stereotypical gay guy interior decorators, which in 1990 was kind of an interesting posture to take, but now it just seems hackneyed. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable day, though I really became quite lazy after the 'rent's went home.

I'm at a very interesting point with the novel, and I need to get beyond these slow days of productivity, get a fix on what the hang up is and just drop the hammer. I had a dream about painting a still life, which caused me to start my sketch book back up, so I'm hoping that'll help the process a bit.

Got a call from my neighbor's mother in NY, saying she'd been in an accident and would I be able to pick her up from Dulles tomorrow and check in on the dog next door. Jesus, hope everything's okay with her.

Wednesday, June 22: Week 47

Okay, this is more like it, good day all around. As I mentioned in the last two posts, the last couple of days have been sort of sucky, so I've gone back to a "square one" approach. One of the hardest things to do is the calorie counting, but I swear to god, there's nothing like it to keep you focused on what's going in your yap. I'm also timing my meals again, so that my last meal is at 6:00 which, as simple as that sounds, seems to have been the hardest thing I've ever done. I love, LOVE, food which is a huge contributor to why I need to keep an eye on my intake. I also have a fondness for consuming unbelievably high fat, high calorie foods at the instant before I hop in bed. Sad, sad, sad. Well, for two days at least, I've re-worked those habits, and it feels reasonable and doable over the long term.

On the novel front, as you can see, I fell far from my targets for word count today but the writing was good. I hope to figure out how I can have days of significant productivity soon, I used to be able to knock out the 1500 word days pretty easily, but it's gotten very hard of late.

Anyway, since I bailed on my workouts earlier in the week, I had to combine the leg and shoulder day, and it was friggin' heinous. Loved it.

Tuesday, June 21: Week 47

I was trying to get at something yesterday, and it has to do with a weakness I share with many, but can be very self-destructive. The easiest example is somebody saying "I can't seem to lose weight" while eating donuts. It's the psychosis of focusing on the positives but not acknowledging the negatives, then acting like you don't know what the problem is.

At a macro level, I'm a pretty simple guy, and part of that simplicity is that as an organism if I fail at one thing it tends to pollute the rest of my initiatives. Conversely when I succeed in one it cascades through the others. I began to fear the novel, fear failure, fear, well, frankly fear "sucking" and producing a year long piece of crap. This bit of fear cascaded into my workouts and diet, and in the past month I've found myself reverting to habits I used to blame on working too much. Well, obviously that isn't an issue at the moment, so the behaviors are just old habits that feel comfortable. Whatever, this is starting to sound like gobbledygook, its really very simple. I spent today identifying the things in my life that need to be tracked closely to affect change, in my diet, workouts, schedule and work on the novel. These are all things I've done before, and I got cocky and decided everything was cool so I didn't have to do the hard work of tracking myself. Understandable, but I'm getting a little too old to keep blaming my own stupidity, let's face it, it's a known quantity.

In addition to all the paperwork and analysis, I had a great conversation with Alex (the Brazilian guy who moved in next door a couple of months ago, young guy about 26, starting a new life) about chicks. There's nothing as primal as guys talking about chicks and Alex has been very serious about screwing his head on tight and facing the world with a new gameplan. In discussing his new vision, vis-a-vis the fairer sex, memories cascaded over me of a similar time in my life, jesus, 15 years ago. I won't bore you with the details, but the convo was a revelation, and came on the perfect day. I accomplished a good deal today in getting my calorie counting and food consumption on track, as well as organizing time, it's day one of the 31 day countdown to Vegas, and it was a good day one.

Tomorrow is about the novel, Thursday about vision, Friday about synthesis of all the components. The rest of the countdown to July 21 is about continuing these cornerstone actions in order to establish them as habits. I'm pumped.

Monday, June 20: Week 47

I'm not gonna' kid you, this was a pretty useless day. I read, I ate, I watched DVD's. And I sat in front of the computer doing everything except things productive.

I'm feeling the exact opposite of overwhelmed, sort of non-whelmed, and foggy. One of the worst feelings in the world is being on a linear journey, then waking to find yourself at a place previously visited, not quite understanding how you got there. Well, I gotta' get my act together, here in the final moments of this Odyssey and push. I've been blessed with advantages, and have worked for others, and my biggest enemy are the conflicts between nature, acculturation, and ambition that rage silently in the blind spots of my vision. Be that as it may, those conflicts can overwhelm the accomplishments I've made these past few months and I can't let that happen.

I realize now that I read that last passage, that it probably doesn't make any sense but I'm just trying to quickly capture a fairly "big" idea so that I can reference it for further exploration later. So, sorry, don't mean to be obtuse, but then again maybe I do. Okay, gotta' go before I confuse myself further!

Sunday, June 19: Week 47

I think I've unhinged the already precariously balanced psyche of Lola the Pug. There's a terribly long history with this, but to summarize, Lola has a problem with balls. Specifically balls that fit in her mouth. She goes simply mad, needing to possess, needing to defend possession, needing absolute dominion over the ball. It got so bad that her owner, April, banned all balls some time back. However, over the last few weeks she's relented a bit and Lola's been playing with some tennis balls, but with little enthusiasm due to her inability to get a lock-jaw on them. Well, on Friday the lawn guys chopped up the balls pretty good, and Lola's true nature was unleashed. Here's where I enter the picture. She wouldn't focus on her poop and pee duties Saturday, so powerful her lust for the ball, so I decided she needed to be put on the leash to get her mind on the job. Of course, she wouldn't relent possession of the ball, so there we were walking around the neighborhood with her trying to breath through her less than optimal pug nose, she'd rather asphyxiate than drop it. And, on a side note, you haven't lived till you've seen a pug take a doodie with a tennis ball clenched in its teeth. So I get the bright idea to use reverse psychology so that she can only have the ball inside, so that outside is for taking care of business. Well, long story short, she couldn't handle it. She was more nuts inside than out, so I took the ball away. Now she's convinced the ball is EVERYWHERE, on the counter, under the chair, on the bookshelf, in the dishwasher. She spent the day with another of April's friends today, and it's my profound hope the time away has been therapeutic, and that when April returns Lola will be back to being just her normal plain neurotic.

Spent the day with my parents and sister Leslie celebrating Father's Day, and that's always a pleasure. Poor Les wasn't feeling 100%, and had to bail after a couple of hours, which was a bummer, hate seeing my sister feelin' bad. My parents have sold their current home, and after Leslie left and we chowed on some chicken, we took a field trip to see the new house. It's a smaller space, which is exactly what they're looking for and it's a sweet layout, so I know they'll be digging life once they get through the hellish moving process.

Monday starts my big 30 day push before my Vegas trip, should be interesting and intense. Peace out people.

Saturday, June 18: Week 46

I was utterly useless today, and this wasn't a scheduled "useless" day, this just snuck up on me. Got up early, 'round 5:30 (which may be a part of my malaise), and took out the knuckle gouging pug Lola for some much needed evacuation. Got the paper, drank my coffee, turned on the computer, balanced my checkbook (creating a minor depression spiral) and even though it's really, really crazy from a strategic financial standpoint I went ahead and bought some tickets for a Las Vegas bachelor party weekend in honor of my pal Pierre. It'll be a blast, and I was honored to be included with all of his childhood friends. But after that, I just sort of stared into the middle distance, skipping my workout (which probably would've snapped me out of this funk), internally debating the most trivial of decisions, and pretty much just being a lazy wank.

Well, it's all very amusing to waste time, and I think this mood is likely related to the soft ticking sound in the back of my mind counting me down to the end of this year of freedom and returning to the oppressive grind of corporate whoring. If nothing else this trip to Vegas gives me a short term target for my very spotty dieting. I've stalled on that, and I need to be down at least another 20 before I start the job hunt, nothing kills an interview like a big sweaty guy!

Friday, June 17: Week 46

Man, I struggled with the book today, the 730 words felt like impacted molars being yanked out. I thought about trying to gut it out tonight, but I think the best thing would be to hit the sack and start fresh tomorrow.

And, I gotta' get up early anyway to walk the neighbor's (April) pug, who just got finished ripping the knuckles on my right hand to shreds in my futile attempt to get the mangled tennis ball out of her yap. Lola, the pug in question, is one ball-crazy canine. In addition to her psychotic pursuit of tattered tennis balls, she also has an almost as intense disdain for me. That dog loves the girls, but I don't get no play. But I have to admit she was slightly more affectionate this evening (prior to knuckle removal), which I attribute only to my status as bringer of food while mommy's away.

As painful as the writing was today, I had another of those interesting moments where I slipped into the skin of my character and saw the world through her eyes. I have a moderate fear that she's going to "read" a little too male, but I'm doing my best to channel all the women I've known to make her "feel" female. That being said, it was a small moment, but one where I had to inhabit her brain fully to render it. And, if you haven't sat down to create fictional people, you have no idea how weird it is to slip between thinking and being someone else. I feel like a grifter. But a good grifter.

Thursday, June 16: Week 46

Okay, in response to my crack in yesterday's entry, its been brought to my attention that I know at least 12 single people, not 2. It was really more of a metaphor for a growing sense of social retardation as opposed to a census figure, but I'll watch the sloppy language in future!

Saw "Batman Begins" yesterday, it rocked, really got to the heart of a character that's been in continuous creation for 66 years. I enjoyed Burton's first film, but its stylization was Burton's, the character was a motif. Nolan really tells the core story while adding to it the way artists and writers have added to it over the years. It feels authentic.

It's freaking 6:17 and it's time for this big man to chow down on some cabbage and red beans!

Wednesday, June 15: Week 46

My Nephew Ellory wrote to ask "why don't you update your website anymore?", which is a good friggin' question, I checked and it's been over a month! It may have had something to do with the onset of the excellent spring weather here in god's country, but it's more likely that it's my profound belief that nobody actually reads this thing. But now that I think about it, updating this stupid thing is a good way to keep myself oriented in the year (two months left till I gotta' pay the piper and look for work...god give me strength), so I'm back for the duration of the Odyssey.

I got a call from my pal Sharon yesterday giving me the good news that she and her husband Sean are expecting a baby, this and a recent visit with my friend Lia and her new baby, brought me to the realization that I only know two single people. What the hell is that? I gotta' get me a girlfriend asap! This is getting embarrassing.

You haven't missed much with me not posting, been a pretty uneventful month, but of course, that's the bulk of life and this journal was supposed to be a meditation on the year of living freely so I don't have a good excuse for being absent. So, check back every now and then and I'll do my best to entertain and blow you away with my extraordinary insights! Peace out.