I’m a slave to my whims. When I feel like doing something, I’m going to do it. When I don’t feel like doing something even though it’s something I need to do, then I force myself to do it, regardless if I like it or not. I make myself like it. But I also procrastinate. I hold off from doing what I need to be doing for as long as possible. We all do this, right? I’m not the only one who does this. But when I get an idea, and it excites me, then I have to do it. I don’t think about it, and sometimes that comes back to hurt me. Like when I emailed her a few days ago. She hasn’t replied, and she might never reply, and that will either make me sad or make me not care anymore. But I didn’t even think about it when I emailed her. I just did it.

Remember those posts last month about dating? I’ve made zero progress since then, but a few days ago, I had the chance to talk to a girl, and I just let her walk by. I remember feeling so fucking bad afterwards. I recognized the opportunity, I knew I had to talk to her, but when that window opened up, I froze. I looked at her, and she looked back, and nothing. She walked by, and I walked the other way, and I wanted to jump off a cliff. I don’t know why I froze, but I did. C’est la fucking vie.

I’m also on day 130. 100 days ago I gave myself three goals to try and complete for the next 30 days. I didn’t complete them then, and I’m not really on track to complete them soon. I guess I’m reading still, but not as much as I wanted back then. The whole body fat issue turned out to be moot as I could tell I was losing fat by just looking at myself, and I stopped using whey protein powder. Instead, I’ve been using Primal Fuel for the past few months, and I think that’s helped me out a bunch. I’m not a big New Year’s resolution guy anymore, but I’ve definitely felt the lack of urgency I’ve felt for this year. Maybe some goals would help kickstart that drive. I don’t know.

Sure, I’ve come a long way, but a lot of it has felt easy. It was hard years ago when I spent so much time learning how to build and sustain habits, and even though I’ve fallen off the wagon many times since then, I knew how to get back on my feet and start over. I knew once I built up momentum, things will run more smoothly and I’d be happier. But it seems I haven’t taken that next step. What comes after you’ve built the foundation? The house. I haven’t built the house yet.

I’m not sure what type of house I want to build, but I know it’s time for me to start. I hope I don’t come back in 30 days and be like, remember when I was talking about building a house? Yeah, I’ve made no progress on that. Wish me luck.

You know what’s great? When you feel great. I feel great. Still not 100%, but better than even yesterday and especially better than a few days ago. I had so much energy at work today, and I didn’t know how much I missed feeling that way. That’s how I love to feel, and having that taken away from me for a few days was super unpleasant. I still have the occasional coughing and sneezing fits, but my headache, congestion, and runny nose are all gone, as well as any and all aches and feelings of fatigue. I miss working out, but I don’t want to ruin anything just yet, so I didn’t work out.

I remembered why I try to be hard on myself today. I felt a certain sense of relief on my drive home from work. I knew I didn’t have to work out, so I knew I could just pop open a playlist of TV shows to watch and simply lie in bed and watch them. I didn’t have to get ready for my pre- and post- workout routines, which meant my day was practically over. I used to do this all the time last year, and that just made me develop bad habits that I wanted to eradicate with the start of this blog. I know a week off isn’t going to damage my progress or anything, especially when I’ll be pushing myself even harder next week, but it was that feeling of relief that I didn’t like. It was like I was easing my foot off the pedal, and that entails death in my mind. I’m like Chev Chelios in Crank: I have to have that constant jolt of electricity in my system for me to live since anything less than that means death. Any downtime, to me, is bad. That’s why I have to keep forcing myself to move my feet.

On a side note: I like writing to an audience because I get to spend some time explaining through some things that seem common sense to me because they involve me, but with an audience, I get to somewhat explain my intimate thoughts, and through that process, I learn more about myself. I never experienced that in my journals, and that’s one big thing for why I love my blog. Anyways…

I emailed her yesterday. As all you guys know, this was somewhat coming for a while now, but the decision to do it yesterday came about kind of spontaneously. I just felt good, like I wrote about, and I decided to just do it. It was a short email where I asked a few questions and that was it. I don’t know if she still checks this email, and if she does, how often. Regardless, she hasn’t replied, and I’m inclined to assume she doesn’t check this email at all or that often. Of course, if she emails me back I’ll most definitely write about it here, so stay tuned. Ever since doing it yesterday, I’ve felt no regret when I thought I would. It didn’t seem like a momentous occasion, and I think that’s a good sign toward the state of my emotional health. I think I needed to ease up on being so hard on myself to simply do this and get it over with.

I guess I needed to get sick to reevaluate some of the priorities and mindsets in my life. Hmm…

I feel better today, which is awesome. I still woke up this morning super tired, super sick, and super irritated at the fact that my ceiling began leaking during the night, which cut my sleep short tremendously. I haven’t been able to catch up on sleep yet, but I will once I write this entry. I did some good work at my job today, I think, and I’m excited to continue this project I’m working on there tomorrow. To be technical, it involves creating group policies for folder redirection and roaming profiles that affects all the students. Since I’ve been at this job, I noticed a few “hacks” the previous tech guys set up, and for a while, they worked, but I was consistently running into their limited capabilities.

Folder redirection and roaming profiles helps me centralize everything on our one network attached storage drive. Whenever a user logs onto a computer, Windows creates all the necessary folders and registry settings in the C:\Users folder. This includes the Documents folder, the AppData folder, the Desktop, etc. The problem with this is that students don’t use the same computer all the time. Every time they grab a new netbook or laptop or when they logon onto a desktop, Windows creates all these folders and settings again, and nothing is synchronized between any of these computers. So if a student writes a paper or something on one computer, saves it onto the desktop, logs out and logs into some other computer, that document won’t be available. The “hack” the previous tech guy implemented was mapping a student folder to each individual student, and here the student’s documents followed them around everywhere.

The problem with this is that this only works for documents. Windows still has to create all those folders and settings for each computer the student logs onto. I’ve found folders from students from the last two graduating classes. That’s just wasted space being used for no purpose. So by redirecting all the folders to the NAS, everything is synced up — all the folders are synced, all their settings are synced, and Windows doesn’t create these folders on each individual computer because it accesses them all from the NAS. So a student can save a document on the desktop on one computer, log onto another computer, and that same document will be there on the desktop for them to continue editing. They can put music in the My Music folder on one computer and have that sync up across other computers. It’s really cool, really convenient, and really annoying to set up. I’ve been running into sharing permission issues that is boggling my mind right now. I blame my sickness.

I wrote so much about this because that was most of my day. I came home, popped some popcorn and ate it while watching some TV, made dinner and watched more TV, read a bit, wrote a bit more, and now I’m here, writing this. I felt like working out, but I didn’t want to risk anything, especially since today could just be a fluke, and I’ll be right back to feeling awful tomorrow. I was serious about taking the week off, even if I feel 100% tomorrow or the next day. By the time Monday comes around, I know I’ll push myself really hard to make up for this “lost” week.

Besides, tomorrow I have to drop off my car at the dealer to get it looked at, and they’re letting me borrow a van so I can take it to work. I’m going to need all the positive thoughts I can get to ensure my car isn’t in that bad of shape. God I hope so.

I decided to take the week off from working out to recoup and recover. I did not get any better today, and in fact, I think I got a little bit worse. I went to work and I had to move around a lot, which fatigued my body. Once I got home, things just got worse. Everything hurt. I was achy, tired, irritable, and a host of other negative emotions. I was minutes away from working out — I launched the videos on my computer and everything — but once I stood up from my bed, I fell back down and decided I should rest. It sucks because I just started this new Insanity workout last week, and now I have to postpone it for a bit. I’m thinking of starting over next week, so I know that I could the workout properly — the way it was designed. I’ldal think about that tomorrow, though.

It’s hard to write 500 words when I know I just want to go to sleep and rest. Does it even matter if I don’t reach my self-created word count? I think it does, if only for my own pride. I don’t like that I didn’t write 500 words consistently when I went to California. It’s like this thorn on my record, and it feels like I failed myself. I think that’s my sickness talking, but it’s what I’m feeling now. Co-workers at work told me that my body was just not used to all the germs at the school, and that it’ll take time for my immune system adapt. Others told me that my trip from California really screwed me up, and I’m just now paying the price. I don’t know about any of that. I think I got sick because I worked out all week with my shirt off when it was like 10 degrees inside my house. I woke up Saturday morning really cold, and I think that might have had something to do with it. I don’t know.

Needless to say, I didn’t do anything today that’s noteworthy, except, I guess, for the usual suspects. I wrote my words for my novel and the rest of my morning routine, I read a bit from my book and accomplished the rest of my nightly routine. Now I just want to sleep. I haven’t been going back and re-reading and revising my entries for what seems like a few weeks, which tells me I’m just regurgitating these entries out and not spending my time with them like I used to. These entries used to take me a good hour to write and complete. Now it’s taking me like 15-20 minutes, if that. I’m cheating myself from improving all because I want to sleep or I want to watch some TV or some other mindless task. That needs to change. I don’t like that I’m doing that.

God, it seems like I’m more hard on myself when I’m sick than when I’m not. Relax, dude!

I woke up this morning with a blistering headache. Actually, scratch that. I woke up multiple times this morning with a blistering headache. I went to bed around 10 PM last night, and I woke up about 90 minutes later. My nose was running, my face felt congested, and I just wanted to stop feeling anything. I next woke up at around 3 AM, and I couldn’t go to sleep, so I watched an episode of the Good Wife. It helped. I went to bed and woke up again a bit after 8 AM. I then got up and did my morning routine. After breakfast, I went back to bed and tried to watch some TV to distract me from my headache. It was until 6 PM when I decided I couldn’t handle the pain anymore, and I went to the grocery store and bought some aspirin. This was the first time I’ve taken aspirin in years, so when I realized my headache went away and I just felt better, I blamed my years-long abstinence.

Now that I knew I really did catch a cold today, I had to make peace with the fact that my 47 month long streak of not getting sick had ended. I almost made it to a full four years, but that’s okay. I had to get sick sometime. This is not unbreakable. But now that that streak has been broken, I began to think about breaking other streaks. I thought about breaking my daily blog writing streak, and my reading voraciously streak, and my days spent without talking to her, and many other ones, but I decided to keep them going. The world doesn’t end when I get sick. It’s kind of sad that I have to write that because I’m only sick. I’m not dying. Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve been sick, and I forgot how horrible it feels, but it’s just a part of life. It shouldn’t destroy anyone’s days. Just take it slow, rest, and keep doing what you gotta keep doing. So I spent all day in bed today, taking naps, watching TV, and feeling sorry for myself until I bought some aspirin.

My cousin gave birth to a beautiful baby girl today after over 40 hours. She’s beautiful, and I can’t wait to meet her. I wish she decided to come when I was down there in California, but she didn’t, and that’s okay. I’ll be down there again before I know it, and I’ll meet my first cousin, once removed. Yeah, I got sick this weekend, but my cousin gave fucking birth. I really have no right to bitch about feeling disgusting when there’s someone out there bringing life into this world. All I gotta do is suck it up and keep things in perspective.

I have to go to work tomorrow, and I don’t want to feel this way, especially when my car’s still screwed up and there’s this cold ass winter still hitting us and I have to wake up early to get my morning routine done on time. I live alone; I have a right to bitch on my blog. Wah wah wah.

I woke up today with a runny nose, and I’m writing this with a runny nose, and I’ve been tired all day, even after taking a few naps, and I went to the grocery store and bought some hot chocolate, and I’ve been pouring honey down my throat all day, and all I have to say is that it looks like I might be getting sick. I haven’t been sick since February of 2011. I almost made it four years without getting sick. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow before I stop bragging about that, but this is the first time a sickness has hit me this bad — which isn’t that bad to begin with, which should tell you a lot — that I think I’ll be feeling about the same, if not worse, tomorrow. Because of this, I spent all day in bed watching TV. I didn’t do any of my chores, I didn’t do anything on my todo list, I just lied in bed and watched TV. I did workout, I did make dinner, and I did shower, but that’s it. Other than my morning and nightly routines, I’ve done nothing productive today.

It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way, and part of me obviously doesn’t like it, but another part of me does. It reminded me how important my health is, and how human I am. I’m not invulnerable, and no matter how much I take care of myself, something will always seep through and cause me harm. I actually feel really fortunate to feel a bit under the weather because my mind all week has been dwelling on a few ideas I might have regretted if pursued to their endpoint. If I let those ideas seep through, I might have regressed on all my progress to a point where maybe I would’ve shut down this blog and quit.

I’ve been feeling like quitting all week, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the pressure of trying to write an entry every day, even though I did this with no problem with my journals. I never went into so much depth or wrote this much in them, though, which may be a leading cause of my feeling this way. I’ve also been preventing myself from doing something because of how it may look to other people, but I think I’m going to pursue this idea more vigilantly now. We only live once, right?

I woke up so cold this morning. I think that’s how I got my runny nose. I don’t sleep with my heater on because I feel like it’s a waste of money and because I usually get too hot when it’s on. If I want to adjust the temperature, I have to get out of bed, adjust the dial, and get back into bed and hope that adjustment worked. It’s too much work, so I keep it off. I sleep with two blankets, and they’ve always been enough. This morning must’ve just been a real cold one. I hope I feel better tomorrow, but if I don’t, then I know I’ll have to take it easy, which is totally okay with me.

I’m not in a race here. This is one battle in a war that’s going to last me my entire life. I just need to slow down, learn, and live as best as I can under the circumstances. Carpe diem and all.

I’m having another tough day of trying to figure out what to write. I have easy subjects I could write about, but frankly, I’m tired of writing about them so often. They include Insanity, her, my job, and a random assortment of other things. If the whole premise for this blog since the beginning was for me to change from a person I didn’t like to someone else, then the question I’m asking myself is: have I? My gut answer is I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ve changed enough to satisfy that question. I don’t even know if I’m on the right path, if that path even matters to me anymore. I need to be happy with who I am and what I’ve done, and if I get better, then awesome. If I don’t, though? Am I okay with that? I don’t know.

I had a strong dream about her last night, and it freaked me out so much I woke up from it, startled and sad. It was 4 AM, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I debated with myself all day whether or not I should get back in contact with her someway, but so far, I haven’t, and I don’t think I will. I wanted to mention that briefly because she is a big reason why I started this blog. It’s been 125 days since I last talked to her. This blog and the knowledge of how many days it’s been since I talked to her are both reminders of her. If I truly want to rid myself of her, shouldn’t I try to rid myself of all reminders of her? I’m not quitting this blog. I’m just thinking out loud here. I’m actually glad almost no one reads this because I would imagine if I had a bigger audience how angry I’d be making my readers. Get over her already. Find someone else. Get out more. Move on Trust me, I know. I constantly say the same things to myself every day. I’m tired of it all. But they’re there, and it sucks.

A friend of mine said that I’m so stupendous at organization today. That made me chuckle. I’m not as organized as I wish I was, and that’ll probably make some people who know me angry. It’s like when a skinny supermodel complains that she feels fat, and everyone around her wants to choke her out. If I was more organized, then I think I wouldn’t have meandering days like I’ve had lately. I would be more disciplined and do more than I am. I wouldn’t watch TV, for one. At least not during the weekdays. But then do I want to waste my weekends not doing anything but watching TV? Whatever. I’m tired.

I need to stop caring what other people think of me. I need to not let other people dictate my life, even if it’s just of my own creation. It’s holding me back, and I don’t like being held back. Now I just need to do something about it.

Even though I try to be as open and as honest as I can be on this blog, I purposefully omit many things that happen to me throughout my days and most pertinent thoughts I’m having. For example, I don’t write about what my novel’s about. I don’t write about the current scene or chapter or character or plot point or anything about my novel because I don’t want to, frankly. Writing about my novel when it’s unfinished ruins it for me, in a sense. Not everything is known, so when someone asks me what my novel’s about, I tell them what I can, but that usually incites questions I don’t have answers to. The same with those areas of my life I don’t write about.

When I had a journal, I would write about this stuff because I had an audience of just one: me. But with a blog, I realized I had to build a wall between what I want to reveal and what I want to keep private. I’ve somehow been able to be really honest and really personal on this blog, which I like, but since the entries are so short, I can focus on just one tiny sliver of what’s on my mind. Today, however, I had a hard time coming up with something to write about. My day was simple. It was normal. Nothing memorable happened. I worked out! I read! I wrote! I went to work! I didn’t really do much else. I watched more of the Good Wife but that’s really it. So I lied in bed, my laptop on my lap, and I just stared at the black screen of my word processor for a good 15 minutes trying to figure out what to write about. I thought about writing about her again, but what’s the point? There’s nothing to say right now. I’m organizing my books by color, but that doesn’t deserve more than just one sentence. I may or may not be hanging out with someone tomorrow. I briefly talked on the phone with my best friend today. Everything’s going fine, and that’s not really much for me to write about.

My car is still giving me problems, but I can’t do anything about it until Monday, when my dealer will take a look at it. It’s cold and icy outside, and it only looks to get worse. I’m listening to Nicki Minaj’s new album today because it’s good, and I like it. I thought about emailing her a few minutes before I started this entry because I thought why not. It’s been months now, and if she ignored me, then she ignored me. Whatever. I like Insanity Max: 30 because the workouts are only 30 minutes long, and he marks each set on the video so it’s easy to see how much more I have to push myself before I get a break. Not only that, the workouts are tough. These 30 minutes are just as tough as the 45-60 minute workouts from the Asylum. I like my bed because it’s big and comfy. I like my wall of inspiration. I like my pillows and my messenger bag. I like cooking. Granted, I know very few recipes, but they’re easy to make so I make them all the time. And they’re tasty. I don’t like that I’m more in debt than I thought I would be at this point. I don’t like that I want a new comforter because it’s the best reviewed one I’ve found and that it would look good on my bed. I don’t need it but I want it, and I can’t afford it. That sucks. I really want to focus on my finances this year, but it’s hard. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, and I don’t know how successful I’m going to be.

I don’t know, you guys. This is day 123. The streak remains unbroken, but damn. Sometimes I really have to dig deeper to figure out what to write about, and I don’t know how well I did. As long as I don’t quit, right?

A big reason why I wanted to buy furniture and decorate my home was because to both move on from her, who always complained about how my home looked, and to show it off. It’s very contradictory, and I don’t know how to reconcile that other than to say I have no idea why I feel and have felt this way. I’ve had this urge to get back in touch with not only her but with her friend, too, the one who recently became pregnant. I actually have this OmniOutliner document open with notes for an email I may want to send to the pregnant friend, where I want to apologize and maybe become friends again. It’s stupid, and the biggest reason why it’s stupid is because I have a desire to show them my home, how much I’ve changed and grown, and that I have this blog. I’m still attached to them, and it’s stupid. It’s really stupid, and I know it’s stupid, but they’re real feelings, and I have to acknowledge their existence to help me move on.

Now that I’ve lived in my new and improved home these past few days, I’ve had this feeling of gratefulness and acceptance. I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to see my ideas come to fruition. Driving 3,000 miles is not something one just does. Not only that, but coming back with new furniture and about a dozen boxes full of stuff, too. I’m grateful that it’s done and that I can move on. I’ve also accepted the fact that these girls who bitched about my place won’t see it now. Back when I first had the idea of improving my home, about a month or so after I started this blog, I hoped, maybe even expected, to get back in touch with her or her with me. It never happened, obviously, and I’m glad. She’s still got her hands on me, but I feel them letting go. It’s a good feeling. I may have somebody coming over in the next few days, but that’s something I don’t want to talk about yet. That thought is actually what prompted this line of thinking, but I’m just mentioning that for posterity’s sake.

This all feels like unfinished business, though, and that’s something I have to let go. I guess I’m still holding a grudge over what they said about my place. It’s funny, actually, because it’s kind of petty, but whatever. I’d rather be honest with myself than lie. And in effort to be honest, I have to admit that I’m neglecting my todo list. I’m still not fully back from vacation mode, but it’s nothing too major. I’m doing my habits and routines like always, but I’m not doing the other stuff I want to do. There are stuff on my computer that I want to get done but since they’re not important, I disregard them. There’s more I want to do with my novel, but I don’t because after writing my 300 words in the morning, I move on and do other stuff. Like watch TV. Or procrastinate. Or watch some more TV. It’s a problem only as much as I want to call it a problem. There’s no fire under my ass to get me moving forward, but maybe that needs to change?

We’re about 2% through with the year. I just returned from a long vacation. I finished Day 3 of Insanity Max: 30 today. I still have a long way to go before I should worry. I’m just writing it down now so I can keep myself accountable. Here’s hoping it actually works.

I’m about a third of the way toward completing my goal of 365 straight entries. That’s kind of crazy, right? Time flies, I guess. I’m in a retrospective mood, so lets see what’s happened: I’m in the best shape of my life, I’ve been sober for 121 days now, I found a great job that I love and that pays well, I’m on Chapter 8 of my novel, I drove to San Diego to spend the New Years with my family and I returned with all of my books, DVDs, and other stuff, as well as furniture that has transformed my home into a place I love, and I’ve been writing about it all publicly, honestly, and without regrets. And that was all in just a few months. It’s a new year now. There are 12 months ahead of us that are ripe for the picking. Seize the day and all that.

I needed to write all that down because sometimes I forget that I should be happy at what I’ve done since I’m so concerned about the stuff I haven’t done. One thing I didn’t consider when bringing back all my books and displaying them so clearly on a bookshelf was all the books I’ve left unread. There are so many books I still need to read on subjects I still care about but aren’t a priority anymore. I have so many books on film and screenwriting that I so wanted to read when I bought them, but for one reason or another, I didn’t. I’m no longer as passionate about cinema as I once was, even though that’s what I went to school for. That’s what my degree is for, and that’s what I’m still paying for every month in the form of my student loans. It’s sad, actually, but it also means I’ve changed and grown. I still love film, and what I loved about it was telling stories. That has not changed. I love telling stories, and that’s what I’m doing every morning at 5 AM. I wouldn’t wake up hours before I need to if I didn’t love telling stories. I plan to start reading many of these unread books this year, and maybe these books will rekindle my passion for film again. I don’t know. I’m unopposed to that notion.

One of my goals I made last year that wasn’t a New Years resolution was that I wanted to be published. I started off the year writing a short story that I sent out to a small literary journal, and even thought the story was quite good, the editors at this journal didn’t. They rejected me. I didn’t feel bad that I was rejected, but I also didn’t feel impassioned enough to write another short story. This was back in March of last year, and for the rest of the year, I stopped pursuing that goal of getting published. I won’t be making the same goal this year. Instead, I’m going to do what I have been doing, and that’s writing 300 words a day. For most of the year, that’ll be toward my novel. But I plan to finish this rewrite this year, and maybe afterwards I’ll spend some time writing another short story and sending that out to another journal. Then I’ll get back to my novel and maybe rewrite it well enough to be satisfied enough to send it out to publishers. Who knows? Maybe it’ll happen. Maybe it won’t. The goal is to have no goals.

I love habits and routines. If I keep doing the best things for myself every day on a consistent basis, then I know I can accomplish a lot. Just look at what I did in the past 120 days. Gotta admit, that’s pretty impressive.