Round 2

After a lovely and totally successful birthday week-to-ten-days, I am feeling the need to tighten things up a bit again. I haven't been super bad, but I have had some cheese, and some tortilla chips, and some potato chips, and rather a lot of booze. Its also about time to do another caffeine detox. So back on the wagon I go, and we'll see where that puts me. I am going to do the Whole30 again, with pretty much the same terms as last time. I will endeavor to report in a bit more often this month.

Updates

So the last two weeks my diet has devolved into bacon-and-Red Bull. Which doesn't work quite as well. I'll post more soon - I mostly wanted to note this for posterity.

Tracking in the New Year

After a very spotty year, health- and fitness-wise, I'm trying something new for the next few months. I'm going to attempt to obsessively track everything that affects my joint health and try to use that to make intelligent choices about food, exercise, and medication - because there isn't really a better strategy available that I can find. I'm going to use this blog to take notes on my pain and stiffness, mood, the weather, and anything particularly unusual that doesn't fit in a spreadsheet. I'm also going to log my workouts here, because those also aren't always reducible to numbers.

(I'm going to start tomorrow, rather than wait for the first, because more data is better, right?)

I'm afraid it's not going to be very interesting, but this is the handiest place for me to stick this stuff. I don't intend to share my spreadsheets with the world - it'll be rather too much information - but if you have a particular reason to want to see them, drop me a line and we can chat privately.

Going Both Ways

There is too much I want to do with my time and energy. The three big ones: I want to finish a novel, I want to study karate, I want to get really fit. I end up not reaching any of my goals because even when they don't actively conflict, there's just only so much time, energy, and focus I can come up with.

Lately, studying karate has been winning. I think that's because of a couple of things:
- It's regularly scheduled. I am totally a creature of habit.
- There are other people involved who will notice if I slack off
- It's got regular, predictable milestones and goals.
- It's fun!

Hmm, that's sort of a useful little list. Consistency, accountability, clear progress markers, and... fun. I wonder if applying that to my other two goals will result in anything interesting.

The novel - it's been making some progress, although not nearly enough to suit me.
- Consistency: none. I write when I feel like it, which isn't all that often.
- Accountability: I have recently improved this, and that's really the only reason I've been making progress. It's harder to slack off completely when I know I have to cancel a coffee date, or sit through it knowing I haven't done my share.
- Progress: On the one hand, the work is divided neatly into chapters. On the other, I haven't really set time-based goals. So about 50% on this one.
- Fun: I enjoy the process once I get started, and I do feel really good when I finish a session.

That more closely resembles "getting really fit." (Which I am counting totally separately from karate, because if that alone got me really fit, I'd be a ninja already.)
- Consistency: None at the moment. I can be good about this for about six weeks at a stretch.
- Accountability: Posting to the blog doesn't seem to do it. Possibly because only half a dozen people (at best) read it.
- Progress: Let's face it, "getting really fit" is a crappy goal. I need to define that better.
- Fun: I do enjoy the various activities involved, when I make myself do them.

So I need to define my goals better for fitness, and figure out how to get into the habit of both sitting and writing and... doing whatever will support my fitness goals.

More to come in further posts.

A Challenge

One of the things this lively debate crystallized for me is how hard it must be for people who have never questioned their sexuality to really grok the concept of "the closet".

What would it be like for a straight person to try to spend a day, or maybe a weekend, "in the closet"? Play the pronoun game! Avoid making appreciative remarks about people of your preferred gender! Avoid all lingering glances! When out in public with your partner, avoid any hint of affection! (Well, warn your partner first.) Try desperately to avoid macho/femme mannerisms! Doesn't that sound like fun?

I realized I liked girls "that way" when I was 13 or 14, so I got to go through most of adolescence trying very, very hard not to give myself away. The high school I went to was not an environment that was or is particularly gay-friendly, although lately the school itself does seem to be making a substantial effort. But in my day, you just... didn't come out. The one boy who did got himself emancipated and moved to the city because not even his parents supported him, and the one effort to set up a support group led to harassment and threats from whatever male sports team was active that season. I was on a sports team myself and... there was just no way.

That experience has left me with a couple of interesting scars. The most obvious one is that I am a complete disaster at any sort of casual physical affection. I spent so long worrying that if I touched any woman that she'd believe (or realize) that I was attracted to her that now I am almost totally incapable of initiating contact, and I'm almost as bad at accepting it without twitching and flinching and generally looking like a freak. Which annoys me, because I'd love to be one of those indiscriminately affectionate people, or at least be able to give people hugs without it being a Big Deal.

I wouldn't wish that aspect of my high school experience on anyone, but as a controlled experiment, I'd love to see some people trying to get a sense of it - consciously noting what they usually do without thinking that they'd have to change or stop doing altogether. Even without the threat of substantial social consequences for failure, it might give some folks a perspective they wouldn't find otherwise.

Labels

Added labels, mostly for my own convenience. If for some ungodly reason you're reading my blog and you're not my mother, I'll remind you that this is actually about four blogs merged into one, so it's very streaky.

This is My Father

He's coming out of surgery yesterday, and my mom meets him as they're rolling him to his room
He says, "Piece of cake!"
Mom says, "Oh, good, it was a piece of cake?"
He says, "No, I want a piece of cake!"

Quick Survey on Twitter

If you use Twitter, check this out, will you? One question only!

For Your Amusement and My Records

"It probably looked like I was trying to commit seppuku with a rolling pin wearing a raincoat, but there you go."

Dr. Horrible

I just watched the Dr. Horrible DVD yesterday, and I am happy to report it's definitely worth it. One traditional commentary, which was entertaining, and "Commentary: The Musical" which was hilarious. I haven't even gotten to the extras yet, but I'd recommend the DVD for anyone who liked Dr. Horrible to begin with.

Rosemary Kitty

Part of getting my budget in shape is cutting down on the truly absurd amount of money I spend on food, and that means actually *gasp* cooking for myself. Last night's project was beef stew, based on a random recipe off the internet that matched what I had on hand. It came together just fine but was a touch bland, so I decided to throw in some rosemary. That worked perfectly.

It also received the intense interest and apparent approval of my oldest cat, who ADORES rosemary (and likes beef just fine, too.) This is the one who, at a prior residence, used to dart out the back at every opportunity to hide behind the rosemary bush and graze. Ever watched a cat try to graze? They're really not designed for it, and it's adorable. I gave her a smidge of broth and a bite of beef and she was content, but I suspect I'm going to have to fend her off every time I open a container of this stuff. She's an odd one.

Mint.com

Last night in a fit of responsibility I paid a couple bills and realized that I need to get my budget under a tight rein until I have a new income stream locked down. I used to use Microsoft Money and liked it very well, until my installation CD... um, disappeared, and one of my many hard drive disasters killed it. I bought Quicken last year but never really liked it, so I didn't really want to bother reinstalling it. So I hopped over to one of my favorite financial sites and saw a new partnership with Mint.com. I generally trust the Fool, so I checked it out - and I love it.

My financial situation isn't all that complicated, really - checking, savings, credit card, car loan, mortgage, two 401ks, employee stock account... well, ok, it is sort of complicated. What Mint.com does that I REALLY like is it pulls directly from all of my online accounts - including the investment accounts - and presents the results in an eminently simple and readable one-sheet. (The downside: this meant that I had to look at my investment accounts... ouch.) It has a very basic categorizing system and budgeting tool, and does some simple pie charts to help track spending. All I needed, really - plus it's online, so I don't have to worry about my next hard drive failure.

It's not perfect - it doesn't have access to my car loan or my nearly-forgotten gas card yet, and if it has bill notifications, I haven't found them - but I like it a lot better than Quicken, plus it's free. I'll stick with it for a month or so and see how it works out.

Note to Self:

When eating delicious mint truffle Hershey's Kisses while reading in bed, make sure all Kisses are accounted for before going to sleep.

It smelled lovely all night, but the stickiness was... unexpected.

Hello, World!

Welcome to the megablog. I've merged in content from my diet-and-fitness journal, my long-moribund MMO journal, and the few posts I wrote for a multi-author online community management blog. Keeping these bits of my life separate has been handy, but it's time to move them all to one place so I can feel free to ramble about whatever's on my mind. I've also opened a Twitter account, and might possibly give in to trendiness and start a Facebook account. Look out, internets - I'm here!