Apologies

I just wanted to apologize for not updating this page recently. It's been a rough week or so and it's going to be another rough couple of days, but I'm still here. Just minimal internet time, which pisses me off. By the middle of next week, life should be back to normal and I'll post about my mundane life again. Hurrah. My photoblog is still staying current, though, since that's super easy to update. Poke over there if you haven't before to check out my mundane pics!!

Acceptable In The 80s

This YouTube clip might not mean much to many people who read this blog, but I just found it on Dyl's Gecko Echo blog. It's a bunch of clips from Blake's 7, a British sci-fi show I discovered shortly after finding Doctor Who back in high school. It's been twenty years since I've seen an episode, though. Anyway, Calvin Harris' awesome "Acceptable In The Eighties" is the music for the video and it works brilliantly. Love it!

Sleep

It's what I need. Two nights ago I had probably the worst night of sleep I've had in months and months and months. I was tired, but I couldn't fall asleep. When I did manage to fall asleep, I couldn't stay asleep. And there was no good reason for it. Usually it's because the cats are being a pain in my ass or Ken is hogging the blankets or something, but this time, nothing. I managed to make it through the day without feeling like I was the walking dead, which was a huge plus. Last night I hoped to sleep a little better, and I did, but it wasn't enough. Again, I kept waking up, but I kept falling right back to sleep. It caught up with me today, though. Hard. I didn't stay as late at work as I had hoped to. I lost the ability to concentrate and that's a sure fire sign to leave.

Ken picked me up from work and I agreed to go to the Y with him. He won an auction on our local PBS station for a three month gym membership there. Tonight he signed up and asked if I wanted to check out the place. I agreed, which is big for me considering how gym-phobic I am. I don't know exactly what it is about the gym that freaks me out. It could be because I don't really know anything about the gym. It could be the people there intimidate me. I don't know for sure. All I know is I'm freaked out by it. But I thought I would go, check it out and maybe it isn't all that bad. Well, I felt pretty uneasy there and decided I wasn't going to join. The place felt like a high school gym and that made me really uneasy. I know I'm a freak about things like this. Ken gets a few guest passes and I'm going to make him bully me into going with him one of these times. The only way to get through the anxiety is to just fucking do it already. Even though I've always been gym-phobic, I've kind of wanted to join one in the last year or so. Almost a year ago I hit my goal weight. I did it mostly by walking and diet, but walking only works on certain parts of your body. I need work on more of me than just my legs. For instance, I have these freakishly skinny arms. I always have. They're more prominent in short sleeve weather and I'm pretty self conscious about them. And I still have excess belly flab, but most of that is skin that never retracted. (Lovely, right?) I feel like an idiot for tonight and I'm just going to blame it on how beat I'm feeling right now, even though I know that has nothing to do with it.

Tonight is all about getting to bed at a relatively early hour. I don't have anything on tv (though I have a few shows dvr'd and I have the first episode of the new Torchwood downloaded and waiting for me) and I don't have very much left in my pile of comics to read. I don't have much of an excuse for not getting to bed early.

Question

Just out of sheer curiousity, who is reading this blog from Saugerties? Is it someone I know?

July 3

Three for three. Not bad.

I'm all thrown off by what day it is. I took today off from work and that's what's messing me up. It's been Saturday for most of the day. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that it's still only Friday. It also doesn't help that I've been walking around in a fog today. It's been a busy week and I had one plan and one plan only for today. Sleep. I was hoping to sleep in until at least 10 o'clock. Instead, I woke up around 5:30 this morning and couldn't fall back asleep. I got up, did some chores, played online and then climbed back into bed when Ken got up for work. I still couldn't fall asleep. So I got up and proceeded to get as many chores done around the house as I could. I even tackled cleaning the bathroom, the chore I hate the most. I can usually guilt Ken into cleaning the bathroom, but it's got to be so bad that even he's grossed out by it.

After chores were done, I grabbed my iPod, a stack of comics, some Sun Chips and headed out to the front porch. I managed to read two comics and eat the chips before I passed out. Finally! I estimate I got a solid hour's worth of sleep before Ken got home and woke me up. That was hours ago and I still don't think I've fully recovered from my nap. It's 10:30 now and I was hoping to be in bed by now. As long as Ollie doesn't decide I need to be up at 5:30 tomorrow morning, I hope I can play catch up with Morpheus. We'll see.

July 2

Second day of a new month and second post in a row. Who am I? I thought about challenging myself to do another post-a-day months, but I know how I've been lately and I know that I will fail. My days don't seem to have nearly enough time in them to do the things I really need to do. This is something that I want to do, which means it's a lower priority than the need to do things, which means it's not gonna happen. At least I'm honest.

I have managed to surround myself with some pretty amazing friends. I don't know how I did it being the big shut in I am, but I have to say my friends are the best. I went out to lunch with Sean today. We seem to be on a fairly regular, bi-weekly dining schedule as of late. I really need to make the effort to bump up the frequency, though. I love meeting him for lunch. I love talking to him about whatever. I love listening to him. He's smart, he's funny, and most importantly (to an ego-maniac like myself,) he really gets me. I leave our lunches with a lot to think about. He really makes me think, whether he knows it or not, think about myself, my actions, my fears, my desires. Everybody needs a Sean in their life.

Crashing

I've been running on excitement, nervous energy and adrenaline for the past couple of days. Since my last post, actually. The last few days have been all about planning my trip to Austin this summer (forty-four days from now, not that I'm keeping track or anything.) The length of my stay has been settled upon, the plane tickets are booked and my calendar of events is being filled up as we speak. I've done nothing but think about this trip from the second my eyes open in the morning until the second I lose consciousness at night. Last night was particularly bad because I was exhausted, but laid awake with my mind racing for what seemed like days. I honestly can't remember the last time I was this excited for something.

But the adrenaline is finally giving way and I've been feeling myself coming back down to earth. This is not good. I need the rush to get me through one more day first. Then I can crash down to earth and sleep all day Friday. I'm trying to crank out a little extra overtime before the trip. Lube isn't going to by itself, after all.

Sunday

I'm feeling all out of sorts right now. I just woke up from a nap (6 pm? Good luck falling back asleep tonight!) and I'm groggy. I was pretty tired when I went to bed last night, but all I did was lay there, awake, trying to remember how to fall asleep. I was up pretty late, and when I finally did nod off, Lucy decided it was very important to be pet. When she wants attention, she gets hardcore about it. She'll headbutt you repeatedly until she's sure you know what she wants. Naturally I woke up at the crack of dawn, too. But I made up for some lost sleep this afternoon between the two naps I got in. Like I said earlier, now I'm afraid I'm going to be up all night.

While the weather was kind of unsettled this weekend, I managed to get in a bunch of walking. I usually come home kind of achy, especially in my feet, but I feel so good when I can get out there and get my heart beating and my blood pumping. Only thing is I managed to overdo it just a little. This morning, about half way through my walk, I realized it was too much on my left foot. While it's not been as bothersome recently, it's not better and I need to remember that. Feet take longer than just about anything to heal because they really don't ever get any rest.

I really need something to smack me upside the head. I swear I could find the bad in the most positive thing in the world. Case in point was my weigh in this morning. I had the best showing on the scale in over three months. THREE MONTHS. But rather than feel really good about it, my gut instinct was disappointment that it wasn't better. I'm retarded. But I'm much better now. I realize what a douche I was this morning and I know that I did a great job. And then I said "fuck it" and bought ice cream again to celebrate. I've got a big bowl of it sitting in my belly right now and I'm shocked at how okay I am with that. No guilt of any kind. Yay me. But the sooner the ice cream is out of my house, the better.

Our vacation plans for this summer/fall are starting to take shape. Even though every year we say that it's our last year going to Disney for a while, we're going again this year. When we were there last year, we pre-booked this year's vacation. They were offering the Disney Free Dining Plan again and we decided to take advantage of it. In case you don't know what that is, you book your stay at a Disney hotel and for each day of park admission you buy, you eat for free. You get a counter service meal, a sit down restaurant meal and a snack or two. It ends up being a fantastic deal, but the down side of it is you need to book your sit down restaurant reservations well in advance to get the places you want to eat at. (Remember, a large percentage of the guests in the park are on the same dining plan.) And the down side to that you don't know three months in advance what time you're going to be hungry for dinner. What I especially don't like about this is it forces you to make specific, rigid plans for each day. But we don't have to worry about that any longer. Ken trolls a bunch of different Disney themed websites and found an amazing room discount deal that trumps the Dining Plan deal. We're now booked into the Animal Kingdom Lodge and I'm very excited. We're trying to stay at every Disney hotel at least once and this brings us one hotel closer to completing that goal. Next year, the Polynesian!

In other vacation news, I'm trying to work out a way to go see my friend Phreddy in Austin, Texas this summer. (And Diane, too!!) I wanted to wait until this month's credit card bill rolled in before I started making any concrete plans. I knew this one was going to be a big one ($1100 in car repairs, vet visit, doctor visits, emergency room visit and a couple other unplanned expenses popped up in May) and I wanted to see the damage before anything else. I just paid that bill and now I can start looking ahead to trying to get my ass to Texas.

I think that catches me up, mostly, since my last post.

LOST

Ken sent me this today. I'm kind of excited by the thought of it.

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts has announced extensive plans to convert the old Discovery Island in Bay Lake to a new /Lost/-themed attraction. Lost Island is set to receive guests by the Summer of 2011, a year after the show concludes its six-year run on ABC. ...

The immersive experience will bring guests to the islands in disparate ways, providing two distinct experiences per each trip to the island. The attraction is also unique as the exploration of the island in its entirety forms one complete experience; however, each area of the island works as an individual attraction.

"We have this great experience for the Swan station, which guests get to tour as if they were the survivors first discovering the infamous 'hatch'. But suddenly things go wrong and this station tour becomes a ride! It's an extension of the Imagineering used in rides such as The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Star Tours taken to the next level!", explained [Celandine Coda, vice chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts].

No Bounds

My lack of self-control obviously knows no bounds.  Tomorrow is one of my co-worker's last day here, so today management catered lunch.  Pizza and cake.  No big deal.  I forgot we were having pizza today when I made my lunch, so I came in prepared to eat like any other day.  I could have just ignored the pizza and eaten my lunch like a good boy, but no.  I grabbed a slice of pizza and then ate my lunch.  Sure, an extra piece of pizza on top of a large salad shouldn't do too much damage, but I followed that up with a slice of cake.  And then shortly after I finished that, someone brought me a piece because they thought I hadn't had one.  And I ate that, too.  I'm overstuffed and feeling a little queasy from the second piece of cake.  And I'm disappointed in myself that I can't maintain a level of self-control when there's food around.



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Feeling It

I'm starting to feel the beginnings of a freak out. Small tell-tale signs of it. This whole selling the house/buying a new one is going to be the death of me. Not because it's stressful (which it is) but because Ken is causing the bulk of my stress. For months he's wanted to stage the house for sale. While that's all fine and dandy, the house isn't going on the market for 11 more months. He wants to pack up everything we own and put it in storage. That's fine, but we're not putting the house on the market for 11 months. Sure, we're going to start having some work done in a few months, but even that's a few months away. There's no need to clean out the first floor of our house yet if we're not having ceiling work done until September. He can't get that through his head. He's stressing me the fuck out. But I wouldn't have him any other way. We are such polar opposites in many ways. This is a prime example. He's pulling me forward while I'm trying to reign him in somewhat. It's a nice, but sometimes extreme, balance. Right now it's verging on the extreme. Bah! I just want to be rid of this place and already have my comic room in the new place decorated and up and running.