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This is it! The Final Episode! The Last Installment! The Swan Song of the Blog! I’m 40 as hell already! (01-14-18)

Original Goals 

Looking back at the goals I laid out in the first post for this blog… I didn’t do bad.

Body Goals:

My weight is where is should be.. Weigh in 158.5  

The 2 inches off the waist didn’t happen. Ha! The waist is as trashy as it was but probably no worse.. since I never measured with tape I have to judge based on which pants I can or can not button and how uncomfortable it is to put a sock on.. which still tends to fluctuate after a few good or bad weeks.. but I’d say I’m right about where I started.

(this is from today at the gym when I registered for a thing... :D) 

The elbow miraculously healed.. the pain is gone but last week I noticed it was radiating heat like a nuclear reactor so.. I might wanna get it checked out.. or maybe I just have a hot laser in my elbow from the spider bite. #superpowers

We all know that I pissed away any chance of being “11 months smoke free” a long time ago, but I recommitted to ruining that goal this past week during vacation/birthday celebrations when I torched 2 full packs of Marlboro Reds. I really do think the 2 Tough Mudders I’ve signed up for will help keep me from reaching for the reds in my weaker moments.

Blood pressure has not been checked but I’d be surprised if it’s great after the birthday week vacation I’ve had of all night bars and all day food closing out with a delicious “brisket burnt ends” sandwich from The Joint.

Career Goals:

Documentary is not finished, but it is much closer and I’m more fired up about it than ever! This one is gonna hit like a Bruce Lee kick, y’all. I aim to complete and submit to festivals by the end of March and that is still absolutely manageable with my much lighter spring semester schedule.

Longer term job offer.. I got that since I got the full time job offer this past August which I’ve accepted. I also did get accepted to an MFA Screenwriting program, but I declined to go in favor of the job and the chance to actually finish the film.

Feature film script.. I know exactly what I want to write next but.. that goal seems insanely over ambitious looking back.. I definitely assumed everything would go much faster with the doc than it did, but.. I’ll say now that by this time next year I fully expect to have achieved that goal. Can’t wait to write again!

Heart/Mind Goals:

I aimed at 7000 minutes and 20mins/day average.. The phone won’t tell me how many minutes unless I sit and add up each day.. but it does say 21 mins/day avg for the year, which is crazy! I touched on what I feel like I get out of meditation a few times earlier so I won’t yammer on rewording the same thoughts, but it feels good to know I’ve been able to take a small step in the direction I think is good for me. I want to do much longer sits this year.

Elliptical/Sauna.. 

I’m sure I also averaged 20/mins in the sauna for the year but the elliptical I walked away from in favor of shorter runs on the treadmill so.. I sorta traded that and my phone doesn’t track the treadmill so.. you’ll have to take my word that I feel I probably did also get that average. I was in the gym a LOT this year. Ha!

Fed My Head:

I aimed at 12 audiobooks and I did 17. I would love to do even more but editing requires the focus of all the faculties I possess.

I certainly however did not “read more than 10 books.” I read chunks of a lot of books mostly relating to preparing film syllabi and keeping my head in the film problem solving space. But I just finished of Year of Magical Thinking, given to me by my dad after my friend Palma died. It’s a tough read b/c of what the author went through, and not at all what I expected from the title, but I would recommend it for anyone who cares about people :)  

A Very Special THANK YOU to Scott McCarthy 

Owner of Balance Strength and Fitness Center www.balancefitnesstraining.com

Scott voluntarily gave me a 4 day workout routine. He tailored it to my situation, a slowly healing elbow and someone who can’t spend 3 hours in the gym everyday.. and while my food and beer habits probably prevented me from losing the belly flab, I definitely gained noticeable muscle in my arms, chest and legs. So, I’m certainly stronger than I’ve ever been and in a pretty well rounded way. Without Scott’s workout plan I’m sure that I would’ve waffled from one thing to the next w/o seeing any results, but with it, I had just the right amount of workout 4 days a week and I was able to push myself each time I walked into the gym. And it was great to know that I had a map from someone who looks like the Incredible Hulk and has been training people for 20 years. He just moved into a new place and upgraded the gym that he owns. He also knows a ton about nutrition and will happily call bullshit on a lot of fads that come through, but he’ll tell you exactly why it’s bullshit. Much Respect! Scott! I owe you some video work, brother! Let’s coordinate and we’ll put some cool spots together for the gym. If you (dear reader) are in the Delaware area and want to get real about training stop reading this and drive directly to his gym… unless it’s really late. Then just go FIRST THING TOMORROW!

Final Thoughts..

I want to thank every single person who read this thing even once and especially those of you who shot me a little word of encouragement or a book suggestion along the way privately or publicly. I truly do believe as an experiment it was successful even if all the goals weren’t met b/c I did have the idea of being held accountable for my actions in mind probably more than you’d imagine. And while it didn’t keep every cheeseburger or cigarette out of my face, it did get me to meditate on weeks where I might not have at all. And the fact that I mediated a few times or ate healthier a few times to be able to report that I had done so doesn’t make me feel like I’m somehow a fake. I was as honest as I could be about everything I did and in the case of food, exercise and mediation in service of the audience.. I still get the benefit of each thing even if it isn’t coming from some pure unpolluted source of willpower. I think there’s a bit of horseshit in most ideas that swirl around purity anyway, so.. I’m good with using the blog in the way that I did.

I’m also glad to be done. Ha! I’m happy that I stuck with it for the full year, but.. I’m looking forward to returning to keeping my shameful failures quiet like everyone else online. When I get time I will probably go back and read through the entire year and there’s a chance I might gain some personal insights from that, so I look forward to doing that. And after a borderline belligerent 10 days in New Orleans to celebrate the fact that I’m still standing at 40, I’m also looking forward to getting back to regular exercise (which I did none of in Nola even tho I brought the running shoes :D) as well as returning to eating more like an athlete in training than an idiot with a death wish. I did yoga Thursday and got back in the gym for the first full workout of the new year today - one week after getting back from vacation.

Goals for 2019:

Heart/Mind

Some kind of dinner with people once or twice a month Keep a daily food and exercise journal Mediate 30mins/day Listen to 20 Books Read 5 Books

Career

Get the film sold at a festival Finish a feature screenplay and get lead cast attached  

Body

Zero Cigarettes Lose most of the belly flab - I just signed up for an 8 week fitness challenge at my gym :) Maintain Gym routine (4-6 days/week weights, 2-3 mile runs 1-2 days/week) Keep doing yoga once a week Keep an eye on Blood Pressure

Food

Take probiotic stomach supplements for a year.  Beef no more than once a week (taper down to once a month by end of year) Quit fast food. AKA - quit being gross, AKA quit using my organs as an industrial sludge filter    

Eat more good for your gut stuff in general (straight copying my cousin on his cabbage soup/quinoa moves)  

Booze

Alcohol limited to dinner with friends and 1 glass of wine with dinner (I did this wine w/ dinner thing for a stretch of time in the past. It worked and I like it). Not drinking makes it a lot easier to quit smoking as well - I once quit both for 9 months.. I did the one glass of wine/night all last week. It worked. And I’m cutting beer completely for the next 8 weeks so as to get fucking shredded to maximum and win $750 from this god damn fitness challenge.

I think a big part of why some people find it hard to finish writing books.. or anything is b/c they don’t feel like the end is good enough.. and maybe this end is lacking. I put off writing it for a couple weeks b/c I wanted to make it special in some way.. I wanted it to feel like an amazing ending.. but done is better than perfect and I am now done. I love y’all! I really do! Thanks for all the support!

And remember.. “when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up.. then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.” - (fictional character) Josey Wales  

Get Mean in 2019 ;)

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The One Before the Last One  One Week To Go! (12-27-18)

Merry Christmas. I ate all of the food. I even drank your milkshake. I drink your MILKSHAKE! Most of the food was good but there was consistently way too much on the plate. Portion control at homemade holiday dinner tables is just rude. I’m not one to be rude at the dinner table :) 

(Mom whips up a pretty fun ”Pretzel Salad”)

Got down to Delaware and saw some friends (so drunk in photo below).. one I haven’t seen in a million years and a couple others I don’t see often enough. It was refreshing to catch up with friends from high school and to be reminded of what it’s like to trade no-holds-barred cut downs with some old school heavyweights. And, even though I’m a bit out of practice.. slinging the hot and heavy shit.. seems like if you survived it in high school, you can hop back in the ring anytime as a grown asshole.. and it’s even more fun now. 

I meditated 2 days, I didn’t make it to yoga b/c lunch w/ a friend in from out of town ran long - worth it. Plus we had a “celebrity sighting” when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez walked into the crape shop. I told her to follow the blog. She’s a huge fan now (we did not speak to her). 

I did workout 3 times, (above half of the 165lbs I pressed 6 times.. it’s a few pounds over my body weight, so fuck y’all haters! Ha!) ...it being holiday season, I’ll call that not bad. I fly to New Orleans tomorrow and I’ll be down there for my birthday. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to arrange anything so as to have all my favorite humans in the same place, but.. so it goes. I am definitely looking forward to getting out of town and even more so to seeing some friendly faces I’ve missed and having a great fucking time with a handful of people I absolutely love.

(Lamb, motha fuckers) 

I’m definitely going to enjoy the city for all she’s worth, but I did pack my running shoes and workout clothes, so I’m gonna aim to run at least a few days and do yoga at least twice as well as knocking out some daily burpees in an attempt to keep things in balance. I’m at peace with not being any kind of exercise freak this week, but I actually enjoy it so I don’t want to do nothing at all. Goals - 3 meditations, 20 minutes of edit completed, 5 Bloody Marys 🤠

(Arancini.. some of y’all know how Deep arancini is for me) 

Many things to be said in the next and final blog post.. I look forward to thinking profound things this week.. but don’t worry y’all, I know what you came here for.. I will include a couple final super sexy holiday body shots 😘

(that brownie looking thing is called scrapple.. and it ain’t nothin like a brownie) 

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End of the Semester, End of a Pack and.. One week closer to THEE END! 15 Days Left! (12-19-18)

Ok.. I kept smoking and magic Marlboro dragon puffed my way through that pack by Thursday night. Then Friday I got the old tingle shit throat sensation.. down hard Saturday and Sunday.. It’s almost a relief to be sick on occasion b/c it’s basically the only time I don’t feel guilty about being a lazy bastard for a whole day. I also drank a 12 pack of Miller Lite over 3 days.. that was key to the fast recovery, so write that down in your white trash cold remedies notebook.

The other good thing about getting knocked down by a cold is it’s a good chance to hit reset. I haven’t smoked and I had only been in the gym 1 day in the last 3 weeks but I made that 2 days today since I felt stir crazy enough to get in there. There’s also something that calms me down a little about having a cold and I finally finished super selecting the Houston interviews. Everything is trimmed up and sitting in the pot ready for official edit stew!

Goals for the week weren’t terrible. Meditated 2 days.

I’m giving myself a break on the gym b/c even before I got sick this week was swamped w/ end of semester events and running around for my “big interview” for some TV show in Spain. It ended up being a lot of work for me to make that happen, but worth it if the movie gets any sweet press love. I don’t know if I’ll make the final cut for the show or not, but I know that I gave ‘em enough hot fuckbot juice that somebody will fight to keep me in. Ha! Having interviewed so many people myself.. I know how to put a bow on a tasty sound byte. The only thing I’ve heard back so far was that the guy doing sync was cracking up :D

Anyway, that was fun and an ego boost, but also a ton of work so I’ll grant myself a pass on the gym this week. I did finish the Houston super selects. and I haven’t smoked since Thursday night.. so that’s almost a full week.. oh and I ate salmon a few times before I was on the 2 day soup diet.

I’m about to get into that messy part of the year where I’m back and forth visiting the folks and eating everything and not being in the same state as my gym so.. I’m gonna focus on the meditation (3 days) and the edit (2 days) but I’ll get my yoga on tomorrow night and another workout on Friday before the holiday road takes me away.

This caught my ear and seemed to sum up, and make me feel alright about, a large part of my year… “Ya know you’re livin when it all becomes a blur” - The Growlers / One Million Lovers

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Smoke Signals, Pitch Decks and Rounding of the Final Bend. 3 Weeks To Go!  (12-12-18)

Last week was an endless cigarette fiesta.. when I’m smoking cigarettes, I smoke those fuckers like an asteroid impact countdown has begun. But.. none Monday, Tuesday or today so far.. there’ve been moments where I was battling the thoughts. The idea that those cravings or thoughts are just thoughts and not “me” has helped a little but not much obviously.. and I didn’t meditate all last week or once so far this week. And.. Not a single day in the gym last week.. Not even a day of yoga.. just complete collapse. Plus, more than one factory irradiated bag of fast meat… one plate of sodium drenched chicken wings and probably 10 beers and 3 shots for the week.. not exactly a gladiator training regimen.

That said, the professor work (measured in stones as the semester wraps up) has been getting done and I’ve put a lot of quality energy into my film project. I didn’t even watch a single football game on Sunday… I always watch.. I love to relax and watch football :) but I was absorbed in project work and then the games were all over.. but Pitch Deck = √ and an investor email sent out = √ Nothing seemingly major, but those things have both been sittin on the burner for a loooonnnnng fuckin time now. So even tho my Indian name might be something like “He Who Is a Wreck and a Dickhead”.. I kept moving forward on something… so I’ll take it.

(students always flexin some new fashion twist.. not sure I can follow this one...) 

If I wanna lose this belly flab I’m probably gonna have to nix the sodium cakes (I’ve taken to saying this “sodium cakes” in my head when I see a sign for pizza) and the beer completely, at least for like 3 or 4 months and… that means y’all won’t have to hear about that! Ha! b/c this thing is just about over :D And I promise I will not be posting updates on my diet or lack there of to Facebook or anywhere else 🤠🙌

This thing had such nice structure when it started. I wish I’d had the time to keep preparing it w/ so much care throughout, but life.. it gets so busy.. I’m just happy to have the time to write it. It’s premature to do all my parting shots this week, but.. I appreciate every one of you who’s read any of these. It has made a positive difference to know I have a few people checking in.. even if it hasn’t led me directly to complete physical, mental and emotional harmony. Just having done it every week for a year.. it’s a thing I stuck to for a year and that feels kind of good. Hasn’t always been easy to sit down and write an honest summary of the previous week.. at the same time, it’s not as if I hand-built a house or anything.

Goals last week: Salmon - no. Mediation - no. Houston selects - no. Investment request - yes.

So far this week:

Got back in the gym on Monday. Tuesday, had a class field trip.. No gym, but I’m about to try and squeeze in a campus gym hit between the end of today’s office hours (right now) and Freshmen Film Talent Show that isn’t mandatory but since I was specifically invited by the professor.. it kind of is :)  

Goals this week: Mediate 3 times, Houston super selects, Gym 4 times, Zero cigarettes. Peeeacce!! 

[40countdown]

A Philosophical Moment Above Goose Creek 4 Weeks To Go! (12-05-18)

Disclaimer: I wrote this on Monday but never got around to adding photos so.. it already feels like the past, but I’m gonna leave it as it was and the next post will include this full week. 

(the future)

This philosophical moment is about as deep as the creek, but as worn as it may seem.. it’s no less true. Standing on a little bridge above a creek with the water flowing beneath me I imagined the direction from which the water was coming as the past, the direction it was heading away from me as the future and my place on the bridge as the present moment. I couldn’t see all the way back to where the creek begins and where it heads was also obscured by tree branches and whatnot.. then I looked at the current.. flowing steadily but given to odd twists and turns and there were rocks just beneath the surface reminding me that it wouldn’t always be smooth sailing ahead. I also realized I could move around a little bit on the bridge.. I could obviously look into the past or toward the future, but I couldn’t really escape the now, but having some control over my perspective, which let me move to the side and see a little further upstream into the future.. but I could only see so far as to notice that the streamed forked a ways up.. decisions will have to be made ahead of these forks or at the last moment and those choices will affect what my life becomes. All of this occurring to me while I was outside in service of a vice I’d like to let go of, so.. take the good with the bad as well I suppose.

(the past) 

I’ve smoked close to a pack of cigarettes and I’m not sure why it started other than having some drinks on Saturday night.. but it sticks to me so easy now.. the craving that comes after the nicotine fades which is super fast apparently (science people say) and you want another.. it’s like getting a chip implanted in you with a timer for re-upping the fix. Only it doesn’t really do much for you so the draw isn’t quite like an alien tractor beam.

Anyway, the smoking isn’t great in the face of this tough mudder situation that I’ve signed up for. That shit is no joke and I will need to work my nuts off to get ready.. cigarettes are not part of the training plan… Maybe it’s stress osmosis from the end of semester students.. it’s been super busy as things come to a close for Fall 2018 semester and the northeast probably sells more cigarettes during this time of year than any other.. end of semester, holidays, rapid fire snowstorms.. it’s a perfect hamster wheel of stress. Not an excuse but.. an observation.. or maybe half and half :)

I mediated, I ate well, but.. I had 3 tequila-soda waters on Friday, 2 beers and 2 shots on Saturday.. 2 sakes and 2 beers on Sunday.. not exactly a bender from the days of old, but it doesn’t set me up for peek physical condition either. Had a pretty good time tho, so.. again.. take the good with the bad.

(once it was nuclear bomb drills, then just fire drills.. now machine gun drills)

This week:

I will trade out the tuna for Salmon at least 4 days out of 5 (I bought frozen wild salmon - it used to be my every day.. thing probably noted much earlier in this blog)

I will finish the final Houston interview selects

I will send out some investment requests for the film :D (did y’all see the Observer article? I was featured twice and I’ve been contacted about some other potentially interesting things as well.. all this press should make distribution much easier)

And I will meditate 4 times! damnit!

30 days! (28 days) 

[40countdown]

Habit Hacking, Screen Time and a 3rd Thing 5 Weeks and a Day To Go (11-28-18)

Hack That 

Constantly trying to hack my routine for ways to improve when I’m not stuck at the bummer end of my frequency, which I think I was dealing with over the last couple weeks. I’ve made the statement before about the morning being my foundation for everything good. Quick recap: things go well if I can fuck the shit out of my morning. So.. on that note.. when I follow the money one step further, it’s easy enough to see that the morning depends on the night/the quality of sleep I get.. The struggle being that what I want to do at night is watch awesome obscure old films or 10 episodes of Family Guy.. 

..but that tends to give me a shit night’s rest, so when I’m in the groove I read something dry like a Cinematography text book (last night) and knock out pretty quickly. I did this Monday night and woke up at 2am unable to knock back out, but last night I made it through to 4am which is not bad at all… if it continues that way maybe I’ll be popping up at 6am ready to workout again by the end of the week.

Breath

I’ve got back into the mediation although I’m not really doing long sits yet. I have been getting in 10 mins/day.

I’m back in gym rat mode. Did Sunday and Monday, Tuesday is a blackout day.. on campus (7 hours) teaching/office-ing (3 hours) from 9am to 8pm (stayed til 915pm helping students yesterday).. back in that bitch tonight tho 🏋🏻‍♂️

Am I a Modern Zombie 

Oh yeah, I started tracking my “screen time” on my phone as well. Spend more time on it than I realize.. so that clock is now in my head as I stare at some obscene Tinder vs Reality joke. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.. less scrolling and retardo image consumption has got to be good all around.. not saying zero retardo.. I still appreciate a good shithouse joke on a regular basis.

The 3rd Thing

Ok.. I’ve definitely buried the lead here.. I mentioned to a friend that I decided to plant some fun things on my calendar 4, 5, 6, 12 months into the future b/c I think it helps to have things to look forward to. Of course, that sounds obvious, but it’s something I’ve never systematically done and now I can do that.. so… I thought I was going to sign up for a meditation retreat, but instead I signed up for 2 Tough Mudders! I’ve never done 1.. a “Classic Tough Mudder” is an 8-10 Mile Obstacle Course that I’m in no fucking shape to pull off at the moment. I have 4 months starting next week to prepare for this and the recommended training is no joke, but looks totally doable.. the obstacles look pretty fucking daunting tho! haha! I’ve wanted to do one of these since I first heard about them and with it sitting out there on the calendar getting closer every day, it’s already helping motivate the workouts beyond this 40 year milestone thing.. which is about to come to an end! Next Monday is officially 1 month out, y’all!

Goals for this week: Meditate 3x 20 min sits, Finish Houston Selects, Rough Sketch of shooting schedule for finishing the film.

Peace!

[40countdown]

Micro-Aggressive Workshop, Snowstorms and Something like Malaise  42 Days To Go (11-21-18)

Feeling low and not much like writing any of this. Went to DE last weekend saw Mom, saw Pop, saw one old homie. I’m fucking tired.. doesn’t seem to matter if I work a long ass day or have a relatively easy one.. lately, all I really wanna do is sleep.

Did my workouts up until Thursday when I missed yoga b/c I spun out in the snowstorm and got stuck facing the wrong direction on the highway. Turns out, smooth tread-barren tires aren’t great in flash snowstorms.. my matchbox car spun out on the Hutchinson River Parkway.. after about 40 minutes, five or six 360s and a shared cigarette w/ a nearby spin out victim a tow truck came by and pulled me off to the surface streets. I ended up having to sleep in the mix studio on campus. Had class Friday 1-4pm and then drove to DE Saturday morning.. no working out there.. instead, smoked a pack of cigarettes w/o a problem.. drove back Monday, taught til 10pm then back in class Tuesday at 9am for class til noon, then taught another class from 4-8pm, met a friend in town for beers directly after and ate a trashcan full of buffalo wings.. oh yeah.. and when I got home from that the elevators weren’t working so I waited in the lobby 20 minutes until someone came by and unlocked the stairway :) 

And tomorrow it’s up to Grandma’s in PA for turkey and I think we won’t come back til late Friday or Saturday afternoon.. then Sunday and I’m back into the class hustle Monday. Meanwhile I’ve got a fuckloads of work related and unrelated to school.. barreling toward the 40 year old finish line here feeling like I’m at the end of a marathon.. exhausted and emotionally wasted lately.. 

Part of that may come from the real highlight of last week.. we had an “inclusivity workshop” on micro-aggressions in the Film Department, and after all that “training” I still can’t figure out how the whole concept isn’t just aimed directly at making unprepared, weak people. If everyone just starts to crumble under the anxiety of words that “trigger” them, and our goal is to help people hide from these words, which can include the phrase “safe space” now.. (we’re meant to say “save enough space” just so you know) how will these people make it through a single tough day. I can’t imagine why the suicide rate has been going up… Anyway, that always sounded like garbage from the articles I started seeing a few years ago, and it was garbage up close as well. If you hear of this at a school where your kid is, my suggestion is to try and save them by putting them in a shittier school or move to a “shithole country” where they actually still make tough people.. your kid might get beat up or made fun of, but they also might have a chance at learning to overcome shit and develop a personality that other people might actually want to be around. There’s a book I highly recommend called The Coddling of the American Mind where they describe how the entire system is in direct opposition to what is done in therapy to cure people of anxiety and depression… amazing... it’d be funny if it wasn’t so insufferable and full of phony politeness and absolute dishonesty. I have so much to say about this but I’ll let y’all off the hook for now. 

(here’s a photo which includes Delaware scrapple.. aka “dead pig mush”) 

Trigger warning.. pigs are brutally murdered for substandard meat goop.. also, the world does not give a fuck about you. Good luck out there. 

[40countdown]

Dialing Back In, Getting Back Up and A Talking “Box” 53 Days To Go! (11-11-18)

Eleven-Eleven.. make a wish, bitches! 

(make it loud so we can hear 🤠)

Back in it on a Sunday, but I got up a little later.. didn’t sleep great, partly my own doing trying binge watch lo-fi weirdo movies on Amazon Prime.. they’ve got some real good trash if you’re into that sort of student film made without concern for commercial appeal kind of thing.. which I like to check in on. You want a couple recommendations? okay, fine.. first - this partly sidesteps that “without commercial concern” clause b/c it features boobs, but the 1977 masterpiece of cinema, CHATTERBOX delivers.. a remake of this today would have a lot more interesting things to say. But let’s get back to some feature length raw student film vibes with CRIMINALLY INSANE with the logline “an obese woman recently released from an insane asylum kills anyone who tries to stop her from eating.” I was hoping I was about to find the origin of the mukbang genre, but what I got was enjoyable enough. Then round things out with the ranting, pre-September 11, cult recruitment, collage film ARISE: The SubGenius Video.

Being that this is not a film blog.. 

...let’s get back to the task at hand. How failed have I been this week. Not super failed. First, and maybe most importantly (if you or I believe what I wrote last week) I did get my ass up earlier and I at least did some writing and had easier mornings even tho I only did the morning abs + treadmill routine once.. on that note, it’s not quite bright at 6am but unless it’s a cloudy day it’s lightening up by 630am, and that does help w/ getting up. The other key to this “get the fuck up early” approach is that you actually have to get your ass the fuck to bed early. And now you can see me fully rounding the bend to becoming more like your friend’s dad that’s older than most dads. If I could get to sleep before 11pm every night I would be down for the cause. It’s just not even possible with my current situation unless I say no to almost everything.. like the class I teach on Monday nights.. as well as all after school screenings and receptions for visiting artists and that is kind of the main perk of working at a college and I enjoy that shit.. so, the struggle for that morning “get the fuck up” brain chemistry will continue to be a little bit of a battle and some weeks will just be better than others.

I did all 4 workout days, plus the Thursday yoga class.. oh man.. having not done yoga in a while, it was a good class (not too tough but not too easy) and I swear to all the Gods, going home afterward, my body was literally buzzing.. I felt like I had micro-dosed MDMA… crazy how good you can feel after a good class and/or after taking a break from it for a while. I also mediated.. it was only one day, but I did 25 minutes and it’s better than nothing. Food.. still rockin the tunafish lunch almost er day.. I know I shouldn’t eat that much tuna b/c everything is horrible and mercury and the dark lord and all that, but David Lynch has eaten the fuck out of tunafish sandwiches forever, so.. if it’s good enough for him, I can live. I do that with a handful of mixed nuts and half an orange.. for dinner it’s still hummus w/ celery and carrots.. 

I had a meatball sub on Monday. I’m stuck on campus until 10pm and I can’t go into that class hungry, so I usually eat a dead chicken cutlet wrapped in green tortilla they tell me to call “spinach wrap,” but that line was way too fucking long.. all the young mutants were trying to service their calorie needs at the same time, so I grabbed the dry beef balls on a roll and shoveled it in. Most meatball sandwiches are guilty of overdoing it with the sauce and not putting enough of the balls.. this one had tiny balls and almost zero sauce, but with a quart of melted cheese on it.. these sandwich artists decided to outsource the lubrication needed for overcooked low grade ground cow, so I immediately exhausted my saliva supply on the first bite and was choking at least 50% of the time I was trying to get it down. But it did the job :)

Ran a 5k last Sunday and I think I’m gonna do that again today.. be cool if could make that a Sunday routine. 

(photo taken during the “cool down” phase when I was walking, my pace is more like 1km/6mins - for the record, fuckers!) 

Goals for the week:

Meditate at least 3 times + Workout all 4 days + Build 10 minutes of Interview Edit  

Oh, yeah.. the film is still moving in good directions. Keep an eye on the gram if you wanna stay completely in that loop. @iwantmysexmachine

If the motto or slogan or whatever of this recent section of the blog is Get Back Up.. which I like.. maybe I should amend it to be Get Back Up.. As Early As You Can :) Also, check out “Lo-Fi Beats” on Spotify.. I’ve been diggin on it big time.. The algorithms know us better every day, y’all.. Have a great week!

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60 Days Out. What’s Left in the Tank?! (11-04-18)

I saw a student play about how one should not associate with men and I got an office upgrade, but we’re not talking about that.. 

Really rounding the bend now.. 60 days til my birthday and it conveniently landed on a Sunday so.. I says to myself I says.. (old school NYers are hilarious and wonderful sometimes).. anyway, I says to myself I says.. this is a good time to hit the reset button and strap into hardcore mode as best I can. The finish line is in full view now, and at least for me, there’s nothing like an impending deadline to help sharpen the focus and invigorate the will.

October was barely short of a complete collapse. I have the reasonable justification of two super long weekends of travel work for the film that didn’t make it easy, but.. either way.. my routine fell apart and I started eating like a variety of hilarious similes. Just to get some of that on record.. I’ve been to Popeyes enough lately that someone might suspect me of being a jealous ex lover of Olive Oyl.. I’ve been eating those small frozen “Celeste” pizzas like the fucking cookie monster.. I even leaned on some pizza at the school one day and that is just plain… it’s like the saddest pizza on Earth. It’s the pizza you imagine they have at an adult day care facility, but not even for a birthday.. just like the standard “Friday pizza day!” I can picture the young, kind nurse Jennifer holding a hardly warm piece talking to Stanley about the Mets new GM as he stares into some unseen dimension high on free medication. #sadpizza

I haven’t lifted a weight since the middle of October and I haven’t meditated for more than 10 mins in several weeks either. I’ve also abandoned the yoga… I did run a mile and half on Thursday morning, so there was a small blip of life on the screen there…

I haven’t corrected the eating habits completely yet, but I had it in my head to let myself enjoy the gross life for a few more days since I spotted this “60 days out” on the horizon a couple days ago.. knowing that I planned to shut it all down today and refocus the effort.

I think I might be the only person happy about the clock change this year. As I said in a previous post, I think the foundation of my routine is being able to get up early in the morning and run and  do a little writing.. and the colder, darker mornings haven’t made it easy to get up - maybe that’s not the whole reason, but.. hasn’t made it any easier. So.. this morning was the first test of that and it definitely felt different waking up at 7am and seeing it was already fully lit.. like a party at nobody’s house ever. (stop saying “lit” or don’t start. the kids over use it. even as a mock it’s still only douchey. nothing is lit.)

I also noticed that I stopped tracking things on the calendar. I have a wall calendar I use for scheduling and daily goals and I have an additional one I use for workout and meditation tracking (which has been previously featured here) and I just stopped writing anything on either of them for the last 2 weeks. Not sure if it’s a symptom or a result.. but I see it as a thing I do when things are working according to plan, so I’m gonna dial that back in as well.

It’s 5 mins til 9am on Sunday. I’m 2/3 through my first cup of coffee (2nd one waiting and slowly burning in the pot). I’m gonna make a new workout playlist while I drink this next cup of coffee and then go to the gym. Oh.. side note.. The Matrix is still the shit. I had the urge to watch it for a couple days - not sure why.. probably some subliminal marketing by the matrix we live in - but I watched it last night. Still so fucking fun! Some of my students have not even heard of it… get your head around that :) When I pulled it up I realized it was from ’99.. it’s been 19 years! Ha! Rewatch that shit… #thereisnospoon

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The Search For the Stella Groove 9 Weeks To Go! What?! (10-30-18)

(above you may witness that I appear.. how shall one say.. pooped.) 

I think I’m almost 2 weeks without running or working out.. in an attempt to keep everything even I’ve managed to eat with the discipline of drunken baby in a candy store. So the health routine wheels have come completely off at this point. Not gonna list all the bad food, but McDonalds made another appearance.. Popeyes.. really gettin it done. Fast food companies might be secretly sponsoring this blog… maybe they’ve enslaved my mind.. who knows anymore! I’m lost in the matrix and my students from China literally do not know what the hell The Matrix is.. as in, they’ve never even heard of the movie. This is what it means to be turning 40.. you experience shock when 20 year olds don’t know a movie that you feel influenced an entire generation.

(proof I’m trapped in the matrix) 

I went to Houston to interview 2 people for the film. I believe that is the last interview trip for this film! …most likely :) I had a great host which made it easier, cheaper and more delicious. Grateful for all that. I smoked one cigarette.. had 2 shots and 3 beers in the airport waiting for my delayed flight to launch.. besides that I drank an average of 2 beers a night while watching the world series games.. was rooting for L.A. but their manager apparently is a robot with a serious O.S. bug.. haven’t had a good night’s sleep in at least a week and (not counting the recent travel disruption) not working out is probably the biggest part of that. I’ve never been a great sleeper, but when I hit the exercise hard I tend to sleep a lot better.

(I had the lemon-lemon meringue) 

So basically, all elements are out of wack right now.. my routine is shot to shit and I’m not happy with the way I’ve been eating.. I made myself a healthy lunch today but then I get home and I’m tired and I order a gallon of shrimp fried rice and a bucket of wonton soup.. and have no problem packing it all into my cartoonish skinny man gut… I’ve noticed without a doubt that the hardest thing lately is getting my ass out of bed in the morning. Maybe it’s the change of weather.. but I have not sprung out of bed for a run in at least 2 weeks.. it feels like even more. I think that losing that battle in the morning is the root of the other lost battles throughout the day. When I do get my ass down to the treadmill in the morning, even just a 1 mile run and some pushups gets the endorphins swirling a little and makes everything seem possible. When I fail to get down there I feel less of a positive wind in my sails all day long. Haven’t mediated at all..

(this movie is the shit and this frame in no way identifies it. HA!) 

It’s a bit frustrating to be observant enough to notice what you’re doing wrong but somehow still feel like you can’t quite manage to turn the screw. I’m tempering my complete disapproval of myself by keeping in mind that I have had 2 crazy hardcore travel weekends this month and getting back to NY at some shit hour of the morning (3am, 6am) on Monday and then having to work until 10pm and teach at 9am the day after isn’t exactly the ideal set up for a killer week but… I’m not letting myself completely off the hook. There’s nothing stopping me from dragging my ass out of bed in the morning to run for 10 minutes.. maybe I can get the stella groove back tomorrow morning.. “the stella groove” that’s what the kids are saying these days, right? Hope y’all are rooting for me to win the morning battle! There’s not much time left before the finish line rushes up on me! #thestellagroove

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Pushing Thru a Lull and Weathering the Chili Flavored Intestinal Winds

Running less. Feeling a general and somewhat sudden lull in the energy to workout. But.. Working on the film a ton! Got some sweet press love this week for the sex robot on tinder experiment I did. I’ve been running less and getting out of bed in the morning much less and much slower.. I also think I’ve had at least 1 beer every night for the past week. And I had 4 beers on Saturday night watching the Dodgers leap frog the Brewers into the World Series. Fun stuff.

1 meditation last week.. 

I’ve been eating like a baby with a credit card in mall cafeteria.. I ate 6 homemade grilled cheeses with tomato soup, McDonalds: 10 nuggets, double cheese burger, medium fries, a can of turkey chili w/ beans from Trader Joe’s.. 2 frozen mini-pizzas, 1/3 bag of pretzels and some corn chips and salsa.. I don’t think I’m forgetting anything.. oh.. and almost a kit-kat each day.. I haven’t stopped craving chocolate like a dog on a suicide campaign.

Not a lot of reflection to offer this week.. mostly I feel pretty pressed to be productive on the film right now. And I have been meeting that challenge well.. in doing so, I see myself letting other things fall by the wayside. It’s hard to keep everything operating at an optimum level.. not impossible since I know I’ve had streaks of that as well, but it makes sense to almost everyone I think.. as one thing demands more will power and energy it comes out of the other areas of your life. But I definitely feel the energy on this film is being well spent and I excited every time I sit down with it, even on the days I feel like I have to force myself to sit down.. once I do, I’m immediately energized by it.

Hope this is helping y’all.. keep your grinds up! we’re about to round that new year bend again! Ha! Try not to eat like a garbage disposal with a pulse.. like I’ve been doing.

www.iwantmysexmachine.com

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Bonbons, Sex Robots and a Connecticut Woman w/ a Shopping Cart & a Death Wish 76 Days To Go! (10-16-18)

‘Er Day Sex Robots (www.iwantmysexmachine.com)

Still deep in the movie mix.. not really thinking about anything else.. I made it to yoga and I did workout days 2, 3 and 4.. plus day 1 on Sunday. And I’ve been slowly pushing my run distance back up. Did 3k the other day instead of just 1 mile. My knees have been way better since I started running every other day instead of every day and having reduced my distance from a full 5k each time to only 1 mile, but I’ve been wanting to go a bit longer and it’s feeling good to do so.

Shopping Cart and a Death Wish

I drank 3 beers on Sunday b/c I needed a serious break after doing 7.5 hours straight at the edit desk on Saturday and then going to 3 fucking grocery stores. But.. I learned for the final time that I should never go to any grocery stores on a Sunday. I had been pressing my luck up until now.. knowing that it’s the busiest time, but.. having gone to 3 literally in a row on Sunday and at the last one watching a Connecticut woman park a shopping cart in the only available parking spot around and then turn and look at me like it wasn’t even a problem was… it was the sign I needed that I shouldn’t have been there. I had very evil thoughts in this moment and since one can’t expect people to not be completely awful and disgustingly inconsiderate, I should just avoid the times when the hoards are out in order to not imagine running them over while screaming and cackling like a deranged clown fulfilling some lifelong goal.

The Subcutaneous Layer 

(sometimes you gotta improvise b/c... you’ll see below.. 🤠) 

As the finish line begins to really come into focus I’m not sure that opening side gut shot is going to look much different.. I’m definitely stronger and I’ve stuck to a lot of my goals but.. damn that subcutaneous layer.. it really hangs on like a booger on your uncle’s nostril hair (I am your uncle now). We’ll see.. but I seem to be looking down at more and more Kit Kat bars lately.. hadn’t been on that kick for a while, but lately I’ve been plugging chocolate in my mouth like pregnant woman watching that Johnny Depp movie. Peg Bundy was keeping bonbons in business back in the day and she was always complaining about not getting laid enough.. maybe I’m supplementing my lack of coitus with corporate chocolate flavored sugar cookies… can’t win ‘em all.  

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West Coast Wknd Blur Tour  83 Days To Go! (10-09-18)

Got back out west for a 72 hour blur of interviews and driving. 3 interviews in 3 different cities (including inside an A.I. lab, and a real brothel) around 18 hours of driving, 12 hours of flying, including a red-eye back which concluded with 6.5 hours of college course instruction on Monday ending at 9:50pm :) All that only to turn the car radio on and find out the Yankees were having their intestines pulled out of their mouthes in front of the home crowd by the arch rival… oof!

Super excited about the film right now. All the interviews I got this weekend were really good. There is light at the end of the tunnel and I’m reeling it in as fast as possible. Rough cut freak mode this month and then we’ll be shooting supplemental scenes mined from the darkest and most colorfully psychotic corners of my imagination :) It’s a mad race to meet a deadline for a festival I desperately want in on… stay tuned… I could get interesting.. “interesting” meaning I might end up shaking down elementary school kids for their Adderall, rigging a toilet system to my edit chair and pulling midterm Russian hacker hours to get a cut in the can by the deadline.

I drank 2 beers Friday night with a couple L.A. friends I don’t see often enough. Then I drank 5 beers Sunday night and smoked 6 cigarettes w/ another old homie out there and almost missed my flight :) But I didn’t! I ate a xanax and was kinda half asleep for maybe half the flight. I also ate a bunch of trash starting back on Wednesday, so I can’t use the “food desert highway” of the road as an excuse for my consumption of dumpster meat - at least not completely. Actually, the worst I did on the road (again the 18 hours I drove by myself this wknd) was a double-double animal style with fries and most of a coke. And I ain’t had that in forever… and it was fuckin good! ha!

Did yoga twice. Got 2 days of weights in before wknd travel eliminated any possibility of finishing that routine. But I only meditated 1 day. Didn’t meditate Monday or Tuesday this week, but I’m gonna turn that back on tomorrow. Right now I’m drinking a giant can of Foster’s and getting ready to watch the Yanks regain some self respect in this game 4 and feeling good.

No philosophy this week I guess… if you follow the movie account @iwantmysexmachine there’s plenty to think about over there. Alright, y’all. Keep your grind on! We’re inside the last 3 months. Finish strong! Oh.. and fuck 16-1.. you know what I say, right? … Get, Back, UP!! Let’s Go, Yankees! #freakmode 

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Pipe Dreams of Automation + the Allure of Failure 90 Days Left (10-02-18)

I guess I’m in the reflective period of the year b/c it seems that that is what this blog has turned into. I’m gonna let it ride b/c I’m so swamped.. that’s all I can do.

For a while I’ve been thinking if I just force myself to get up at 5 or 6am and write and exercise for like a week or two weeks or a month, then it will eventually become automatic. I’m now at the point where I’m realizing it will never be automatic. I can do it. And I do do it semi-regularly.. but every single time I do it, it requires some real effort. My inner drill sergeant just likes to sleep the fuck in I guess.. I mean, I want that fucker to get up and just run the show for the first 5 minutes b/c I know once I’m up and writing or in my running shoes I’m good. I can rock it from there, but.. there is a massive gulf between that alarm clock buzz and the other side of that first 5 minutes.. but I guess realizing I’ll never wake up to an autopilot is helpful in some way.. I can at least stop waiting for that.. or maybe Neurolink will come out with a morning autopilot upgrade in a couple years :) I’d get it.

The other temptation that has sort of crept up on me like novice jogger on a city park trail is the allure of failure for the sake of funny material. I love making y’all laugh and this is not a medium where I’m sure that I’m doing that at all! ha! But occasionally I will hear from a friend that they’ve been reading and laughing and there is nothing that makes me feel more valuable than when I make people laugh, double it when it’s friends and multiply it by 5 when it’s family. Side note: a month or so ago I was on a bus full of my family headed to my cousin’s wedding and I said something that the whole bus burst out laughing at and I thought I was candy flipping for about 30 seconds. Whenever you get a chance to make your family laugh I highly recommend you swing for the fences. Anyway, with all that in mind, I find it much easier to write funny material about my failures.. like when I go wild hog at a Chinese buffet and later sit in bed staring crosseyed at the lopsided bowling ball I call my gut.. so anyway, I’ve noticed that there’s some part of me that wants to wreck the ship just for the little bit of comedic material it might provide.. but I guess it’s another case of having some awareness about that attractive side of failure could possibly be of some benefit. Of course, comedy is not the only attractive thing about failure.. failure (in this context) is often delicious and easy.

My shoulder took a real bad shit on me last week so I missed yoga on Thursday and my Day 4 Workout, but I still had a pretty solid week. I started using a new meditation app and meditated 3 times between the old and the new. I’m still 95% guided. When I get in a solid groove and do like 4 or 5 in a week there’s usually at least one in there that I do unguided.

Drank like sailor trying to kill scurvy with tequila on Friday night. That’s an exaggeration.. I think we only had 2 tequilas, but we had several beers and maybe a shot of watered down whiskey too. But that was the only night I drank. I cost me a little productivity on Saturday, but nothing the rest of the week.. I’m making it happen on the film (w/ a lot of help from some friends) and I got the syllabi fully fleshed for the 3 international film production courses I’m teaching, so I feel good about everything right now! @iwantmysexmachine

Next week: Meditate 3 times, Yoga twice and all 4 Workout Days

Oh, and I’m gonna start looking for 5k. Said I was gonna get a couple of those in this year and I haven’t done one. I’m ready. Feelin it. Stay tuned. Keep grinding your grind! So many of you are inspirations to me in so many different ways, so.. know that as well :)

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Snotface, Elbow Hell and Revenge of the Mezcal 14 Weeks/98 Days To Go! (09-24-18)

Got sick this week and had an elbow set back.. Head cold never turned into a hellish flu situation but my nose was smashed up and my sinuses were screwy enough to get my right eye watering pretty good occasionally. And on top of that I had real shooting pain from my elbow throw my wrist for about 24 hours. Worse at certain times but.. it was hanging around enough to make me feel pretty sketched out about exercise.. adding that to the cold was all I needed to bail on the rest of the week. I did make it through Wednesday with my regular routine but I missed yoga on Thursday for the first time since I began going I think.. around 6 or 7 weeks now...

Also.. can’t really say I fell off the wagon b/c.. we all know so far it’s only an imaginary wagon but.. how bout we just say that I watched that wagon go by and then I set it on fire with mezcal and cigarettes on Saturday afternoon. Had a friend in town which meant running around and seeing other folks from years gone by and one of those folks had a bottle of mezcal and a pack of cigarettes.. yep. I smoked about 5 of those in that 2 hour visit on top of the mezcal and had a couple drinks before that while meeting some new friends of my friend at a bar.

Gotta say, I’m trying to appreciate the lessons of reflection that this public self-reporting encourages but… I am kind of looking forward to not telling everyone that I got smashed on mezcal last Saturday when I just said I was gonna limit my consumption to 2 drinks/ day.. regularly violating these self-imposed limits is pretty embarrassing.. I’ll be glad to go back into hiding my failures and promoting the more standard good-stuff only social media version of myself. I also finished a mini bottle of some foreign liquor my friend gave me on Sunday night.. while watching the Patriots forget they were in a football game.. but that probably should only count for 2 drinks since it was more like sweet tea with alcohol in it..   

Meditation.. I think I zilched out finally. Really hard to want to meditate when snot is leaking out of your face. I’m sure some people do it, but my level of commitment is not quite at that level. I need to be in a good rhythm and generally well in order to feel like doing it. But I got a new meditation app! ha! So there’s that :D I’ll let y’all know if it launches me to unimagined states of nirvana next week.

(Pre-Weekend I went to a movie and got popcorn. I ordered “small hog” size.)

The thing about getting sick and having the elbow thing happen is that it totally knocked me off my routine and now having not done it for half a week, it would be easy to continue coasting along in that way, but it also gives me a chance to practice my new made up philosophy and Get Back Up. Check in next week and see how I did.. I started this week out alright.. 

Aiming to 1) Yoga Twice 2) Workout 4 Days 3) Mediate 3 Days

Follow my movie on instagram @iwantmysexmachine we’ll be posting more soon…

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Get Back Up and Get Mean  15 Weeks To Go (09-17-18)

5 Beer Football 

Alright, well… I had 5 beers yesterday and didn’t even think twice about my 2 drink rule! haha! So that is kind of embarrassing.. just forgot about it… a lot of writing this blog is embarrassing actually. Self-correcting in a pretty public way is not something one would typically choose to advertise, but I am attempting to be as open and honest as I can be, in case I do to reach some noticeable change or some of my goals.. I can show that it wasn’t easy like it always seems to sound when someone reports they did some thing that you always wanted to do but seemed so hard.. when someone announces they did X or achieved Y… we imagine other people just have some will power or some way of thinking that allows them to reach certain goals or whatever, but really everyone is a fucking mess, we just rarely see that part of the journey.. maybe.. maybe reading this.. you just see a messy journey and no goals achieved! and I’m wrong! ha! other “goal-achieving-people” do really have some magical will power well they draw from that the rest of us shitheads won’t ever have access to… but I doubt it ;)

The Power of Platitudes (or things similar to platitudes)

I find that I’ve been gathering platitudes that resonate over the course of this blog and the self-reflection required to make it remotely interesting.. platitudes have some value.. they suck when you’re heart broken, but for the most part they do contain some truth and the one I came to early this past week was Get Back Up. And that’s what I think the real secret to all this shit is. It’s not about being perfect in a straight line or about remaining true or pure. I think it’s just about stumbling and getting back up.. over and over again. And realizing that makes it easier to do it. Some days are harder than others, but if you know that all you really have to do to get 70% of the way to the finish line is get back up again.. drag yourself into the gym or sit down in front of the laptop or notebook or whatever.. even when you.. especially when you don’t feel like you’ve got the proper funk for the gig.. just go autopilot for a bit and go through the motions.. if you can do that, you can do the thing.. one pebble at a time. It’s not one thing that you figure out and solve.. it’s not one profound insight you have and then all the rest is easy, it’s getting the fuck up from a million little knock downs - emotionally, financially, physically.. self-inflicted or external.. you just have to Get.. Back.. Up!

(charting my workouts on a calendar makes me want to keep filling in the calendar.. and therefore, gets me in the gym. whatever works. #ocdbenefits) 

Mad-Dog Mean

So I’ve been trying to keep that in mind this week. And hopefully for much longer. And another thing that I’ve found useful in doing so is this quote my pop has in his den from Josey Wales, who is apparently only a fictional character potentially loosely based on some Missouri outlaw, but the quote next to the cheesy picture of Clint Eastwood I find nonetheless useful and inspiring in the tougher moments.. “Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is.” I really love this quote. Not sure why it works so well for me, but it seems to fill me with the fire of an underdog about enter the scene in the movie where hella ass is kicked by me.. and that kind of meanness feels good. Grit, I suppose.. and while it may not be motivated by the most modern day happy hippy peace vibes, it works. Sometimes the obligation to always work things out by calling up gratitude and awareness just annoys the shit out of me, so while I am all about gratitude and I do love the happy hippy vibes as well, sometimes.. fuck all that.. :) Sometimes you gotta get mean!

Get Back Up and Meditate?

Meditation app says I did 10 mins on Wednesday, so.. doubled my focus from last week HA!! but.. not quite 3 sits.. and I thought about it all weekend. Definitely had the time on Saturday and Sunday as well as a few chances during the week. Just as a reminder, I’m not doing the meditation b/c I want to join a Whole Foods checkout counter wellness magazine cult.. I find that it makes me less explosively ridiculous about the little annoying things like getting my headphone cord tangled around a door handle. When I’m meditating regularly I will still most likely explode and attack the door as if it had just tried to mug my grandmother.. but after that, I cool down so much faster and laugh at myself instead of getting twisted into some meaningless state of anger for who knows how long.. and sometimes I even laugh at myself before ruining surrounding property :) Interesting to note that the “Get Back Up philosophy” lines up with the core of meditation practice as well b/c, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned previously, it’s all about “beginning again.” One minute you’re focused on your breath and you can feel your body in perfect alignment and you’re kind of buzzing and almost floating (experienced super-rare milliseconds of this) and the next thing you know you’ve been thinking about why the girl at the gym counter seems to always have an attitude (90% of meditation is actually this).. you have to just begin again.. without getting pissed at yourself.. which is just another distraction. 

So... Get Back Up.. and get plumb, mad-dog mean when you have to ;) 

Thanks for reading. I love y’all. Thanks for the kind words. This thing is almost over. Only 15 weeks to go! Great time to redouble your efforts and start that last push for whatever your New Years resolutions might have been. Peace! #joseywales

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Mezcal, 500 lbs of Chinese Food and the Anxiety Gross Out  (16 Weeks To Go) 09-10-18

This is a weird one to write. I had a solid week even though I missed working out on Monday due to an overwhelming feeling of blah from having a few beers on Sunday of Labor Day weekend.. it really takes very little to knock me off my routine. Not sure if that’s b/c the routine is demanding or if it’s b/c even though I do enjoy routine, I’m not very good at it.. having lived most of my life sort of blowing with the breeze.

So this week I worked out 3 days instead of 4.. still did the yoga on Tues and Thur.. but only meditated for 5 minutes on one day :) crushing it! haha! I did the 5 min meditation at school right before a long day of class (2 back to back 4 hour classes) and it wasn’t the deepest plunge into zen, but it still felt like a good move. This week I’ll shoot for more than 5 mins and hopefully I can beat that.

Saturday night I joined my roommate’s birthday party celebration mostly as an opportunity to do some necessary bonding with my cohabitants, but I did have a good time. We got pretty fired up shooting Mezcal, and I (my team) won 9 straight games of beer pong. Ha! She turned 27, so that was the crowd. It was a good night, but a funny thing happened on Sunday. First of all, I was hungover like a son-of-a-bitch and didn’t move from my bed, aside from the absolute necessities, all day. I tend to act in extremes, so when the wheels come off they really come off and Sunday I acted like it was cheat day at fat camp.. I literally ate a grocery bag full of Chinese food in bed while watching football on my laptop.

About halfway through the Chinese grocery bag and about the same way through the day I started feeling the gross creep of anxiety.. knowing that I had blown off the entire day.. and with class coming up the next day.. I started feeling very uneasy.. like I was behind or unprepared or I’m not exactly sure, but I do remember reading about this Sunday anxiety thing that people get.. although I think this is the first time I’ve ever had it, or at least the first time I’ve been aware of it. I haven’t had a regular job most of my life so maybe that’s part of the reason I never had or noticed the experience but it was very real and no fun at all. Kind of feels a little like you’re caught in a slow moving low level nightmare.. waiting for some unknown horror to appear. Stopping to google the Sunday anxiety articles..

Well.. the article I looked at said the basic obvious stuff which is that thoughts start swirling about work obligations.. but I actually like my job and I am not worried about anything here aside from a healthy amount of concern that I’m prepared for class and doing a good job teaching. And I do have a class on Monday nights, so that was a little part of it I’m sure, but.. I think I compounded my suffering by being hungover and it was in the midst of those gross almost nauseating waves of anxiety that I started reflecting on how fragile my chemical situation really is. I have noticed my general mood improved since I’ve been exercising so much lately #endorphins Apparently, so much so that taking a day completely off where I hardly move at all basically tips all the dominoes linked to the negatives in my head.. and with the film project still needing so much to be done I constantly feel I’m a little behind there, so the anxiety of zeroing out a full day feels a little like being stuck in a haunted house, but w/ bonus guilt for having done it to myself.

Anyway.. the thing I think I’ve gathered from reflecting on this experience, which I may not have done without the self-imposed obligation of writing this blog, is that I have to manage my brain soup with more forethought. For the most part I think I’m doing a pretty good job of this by the way, but.. I remain open to adjustments and without overreacting - as I mentioned, I tend to do things in the extreme - I’m going to make a temporary alcohol rule. Not complete abstinence b/c I can foresee a few situations where having a drink with a friend is going to be the right thing to do, but.. 2 drink maximum and I’m gonna say that is the limit for the week which basically means at most 1 night where I have 2 drinks. I will let that stand until the film is finished.. and maybe it becomes a general part of “my way” that I violate only on occasion afterward. There’s just too much I want to do and enjoy doing to lose all that time and w/ the gross feelings that get sprinkled on top of the banana shit split hangover.. it’s not worth it.

All of this not because I’m bothered by how I behave when drinking, by most accounts I’m quite fun when I’m drinking :) but.. the management of the emotional state has to get stronger consideration b/c I really did not like the way I felt and it was totally avoidable. I could absolutely have hung out and had a good time at the party while having one shot and then one drink and then tapping out early, but I hadn’t had the insight b/c I had never bared such complete witness to the shift in mood… now I have. And I don’t think I’ll forget any time soon.

I could wait til next week but this is already long so.. I’m just gonna dump it all.. I had another small realization this week that my quest to be in the best physical, mental and emotional shape of my life has been slowly morphing into a bit of an obsession with my relatively unremarkable amount of belly flab. And I’ve been very strict with myself on food for 90% of every week.. but I like food. I really like good food. Some people really don’t care and just see it as a energy source obligation.. (most of these people are vegans Ha!) I love my vegan friends, but I’ve had that conversation with a vegan, so don’t tell me it ain’t true. Anyway, I like flavors and different foods. I am going to go back to eating a more varied diet. As long as I keep working out regularly I will still be moving in the right direction. And I also think having a more satisfying diet day to day will help keep me from going full tilt and eating like a starved pig in a restaurant dumpster.

Goals: Meditate 3 times, Yoga and Blast Movie Teaser Out by end of Week.

Thanks for reading.. I know this was a long one. Hopefully some of my “insights” are occasionally useful for you and not just public therapy for me :) either way I appreciate you!