Just a simple little piece of writing.

 
Today I:
made a comic strip people
like using

nothing but my brain at 5am.
Did yoga using nothing
but this old body, these old limbs.

Worked and worked work for
eleven hours on a Monday
even though no

one made me even
though I know 
no one will remember 

today.
Ran a 5k I didn’t even mean to,
but the light was a nice purple,

the dirt mostly sand and 
I didn’t see 
another person for forty-five minutes.

Made a simple
dinner that wasn’t even sad,
only remarkably plain,

and today I wrote
this and even though
it ‘s no good,

I still made it 
today. 
.
.
.

Wish Me Luck.

Today will be a good day. Today will not be a great day.

My current operating philosophy is that most of the days of our lives are unremarkable. Quick: what were you doing 14 Tuesdays ago??? 

You have no idea at all.

And that is the point.

So what I’ve been trying to do is make sure that the ho-hum standards days are at the very least, good.

So what’s good?

Good is a day when we do more than work and more than stress and more than simply call it a success when we manage to cloth and feed ourselves. I have started getting up at 5am and OMG it is terrible, but it isn’t actually, it is just hard.

I make coffee and do one of my silly little drawings that I post each weekday on Instagram (standard_kink) and I sit down to do a little bit of writing. Even 20 minutes is 20 minutes of writing that I wouldn’t have gotten done otherwise (today, for instance, I am writing this). I’m about to go do yoga for a half an hour, then I will clean up at leave for work at 7am.

I will work hard, but I will not let it consume me. I will leave (more or less) on time at 4, I will drive back here and then I will go for a run. I have budgeted an hour and 15 minutes every day for a run. The problem I’ve been having lately is that I’m still getting used to waking up at 5am, so by running time I have been just all tuckered out like a little baby. But some days I still manage to run and today I am going to get it done. I am not a good runner (I’m actually pretty slow and bad at it), but what I lack in talent or physicality or speed, I more than make up for in … actually, I’m kidding, I don’t make up for any of that in any way. And yet, I will still go.

 

After running I will clean up and make dinner. I’m largely off of meat now, so learning how to cook new things has been a challenge, but I’m learning.

After dinner I have an hour budgeted to write. Then another hour to read. Then I am supposed to go t bed SO EARLY because that is the only way to make getting up at 5 sustainable.

What I am describing is not a spectacular day, not one for the history books, but it is a good day. To you it may sound downright miserable, and I get that, but to me any day when I can run, write, and read (RWR) all in the same 24 hours, that is a good day. Since, in the long run, I am not going to remember this day anyway, I might as well make it a day that I can feel good about. 

Who doesn’t need more of those in their life?

Right now it is 6am. Wish me luck.

.

.

.

What Do People Do With Weekends?

Back in February I started this project of re-designing my daily life. I’ve written about it here extensively. Well, it has taken these last five months to really dial it in and test out what works, but this week I have really been doing it! Which is not to say I haven’t been doing it a little at a time. I’ve been climbing a mountain, so to speak, figuring out how to do it as I do it. This week has been good. The last three days I have managed to not only work, but also fit in running everyday, writing every day, reading every day, while also eating healthy, and keeping up with my journal. If our lives have to be filled with mostly boring days, I have finally been making the best out of them.

But now, on Thursday, looking ahead to the weekend, I realize, I don’t have a PLAN for that. Oh no!

The Quarantine made me realize that, left to my own devices, all I will end up doing is laying on the couch eating potato chips, drinking red wine, and listening to podcasts. Let me tell you, that is not the worst way to spend your time during a quarantine. But I’m kind of tired of it. I want to actually be doing things, I want to work off all that Quarantine weight, I want to be truly lean for once in my life, I want to be creating things even though I feel like I have been in a creative slump since that Quarantine started. Hence the conversation I had with myself back in February. The conversation went like this:

ME: You know what? This can not be my life. I don’t like it anymore.

ALSO ME: It’s fine.

ME: Is it though?

ALSO ME: Probably?

ME: I should run more.

ALSO ME: You don’t have the time.

ME: I’ll make the time. Here, look at this spreadsheet I made.

ALSO ME: Did you chart the activities of your average day, hour by hour?

ME: I also put some graphs in the appendix.

ALSO ME: Oh my god, you’re a nerd.

ME: I think I should probably start eating better too.

ALSO ME: I guess that wouldn’t hurt.

ME: Probably I’m also going to cut my meat consumption down to pretty much zero.

ALSO ME: Come again now?

ME: Not full on vegetarian. I’ll still eat meat if I go out or something. I just won’t bring it into the house anymore.

ALSO ME: Probably I can live with that …

ME: I may start doing that with wine too.

ALSO ME: I’m sorry, I didn’t process that …

ME: Look, we all love wine, but it’s not a hobby, you know?. I need better hobbies.

ALSO ME: Like what?

ME: I was thinking yoga?

ALSO ME: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

ME: No, really.

ALSO ME: Oh god, you’re serious.

ME: I am.

ALSO ME: I don’t think you have the discipline for that.

ME: Do you want to bet?

ALSO ME: Not really, I’m not that interested.

ME: Well you just watch all the discipline I’m going to bring … Can I have my graphs back?

And scene!

I’ve focused so much on making my weekday/workdays better, that I have not figured out any plans for the weekends. Yes, I can do all the things I do during the week, but I need to create some activities that are ust weekend things, things I can find special enjoyment in. Maybe classes of group activities like hiking, things that will get me out of the house, out of my routine, and maybe provide the opportunities to meet new people. I am making a list of things like those and doing some research. Do you know anything about surfing classes???

.

.

.

How to Prepare to Be a Beginner.

 

Lately I have been pretty consistent about doing yoga in the mornings. Nothing crazy. I am not good enough at it yet to do anything crazy. I also don’t have any special knowledge about it. My qualifications start and end with the fact I own a yoga mat. 

I found a woman on Youtube who has a series of “easy” and “beginner” videos and I have been working my way through those in the mornings. They range between 15 and 30 minutes and she doesn’t come across as judge-y, which is weirdly common, I have discovered.

Now I’m not here to convince you to do yoga, but I do kind of wish that someone had convinced me to do yoga a long time ago. Here’s why:

• It is waaaaaaaay harder than you think it is. I used to be all like, “That just looks like bending”, but OMG, it engages muscles in a way I hadn’t previously understood. It’s like the first time I ever did a plank and ended up shouting, “Why is this so hard!”

• I’m not going to get all woo-woo on you, but I think it is possible that I’ve been calmer this week than I was a month or two ago. And that’s good because my work life has been … a lot this week, but I have felt it less. This might be a correlation, not causation thing, but I have started to just sort of feel better. And that’s good.

• It seems like my cat is getting a cold. I don’t think that is related to the yoga, though if there is some zen spirit energy swirling around my apartment now, who knows how that manifests?

• I’m sleeping marginally better this week. I’ve always had trouble sleeping, but I think I’m getting a little better at it.

• This isn’t initially going to sound like a good thing, but I go through my days with a little bit of that physically exerted feeling in my body. They way you feel when you’ve been going to the gym consistently. It isn’t a pleasant feeling exactly; some soreness in the arms and legs. It is a good feeling though. I imagine this is my muscles busy throughout the day trying to adjust to this new normal.

• I’ve also been using the elastic band thing and foam roller I had to get for physical therapy, except I figured out I can use them to do some light working out during the day. Again, nothing crazy, but sometime sit is nice to take a break from work and go do some reps on my stretchy band that hooks into the closet door. Do you even stretchy band, bro?

• None of these little things seem life changing. I’m not going to give up running or anything; it’s good to sweat and to run your body into the ground sometimes, but this may be the first time in my adult life that I have realized that not everything has to be that. I think that my brain thinks that nothing counts if you don’t end up a painful sweaty mess. Probably this is the fault of high school gym or being raised as a man in America. Not everything has to be dialed up to 11. Maybe slow and steady and consistent is good. As much as I love running, I’m not going to lie, most of the times I do not go out for a run it is because I just don’t have the juice for it. And who could blame me? When I DO go run, I do like 6 or 8 or 10 MILES! And some days I don’t have that in me. Most days I could go do a mile, but what fun is that?? The first mile is the worst part! But maybe it is good to do things that do not require ALL OF THE ENERGY in your body. Doing some light yoga in the morning isn’t going to change my life, but over time, might change my life, you know what I’m saying?

• If I do this yoga thing long enough, I might one day be comfortable enough to go to a beginners yoga class and then I’ll end up being all about green smoothies or something. So stay tuned for that!

• I really like doing the “Namaste” thing at the end of yoga. I don’t know why. It just seems gracious and we could all use a little more of that.

.

.

.

Taking Stock: Week 3.

Okay, so where are we?

This is Tuesday of Week 3 of my Getting-My-Shit-Together Plan.

Last week was rough. I got my shot on Monday and I experienced a lot of fatigue as a side effect. Last week was also the time change which didn’t help with that. Also last Friday was a big high-stress event at work that I’d been preparing for for awhile and so work kind of ate my life. 

So not a great Week 2. But I still did SOME of my Get-My-Shit-Together things: I showered every morning (funny how that helps), I did my daily drawings every morning (find those on Instagram @standard_kink), I did three of five of these daily morning posts. I ate healthy almost every night.

The weekend was still too lazy, I still don’t have a good plan for the weekends. I spend most of Saturday thinking about the film “We Bought a Zoo” and making random Twitter posts about it for my four followers. I also cleaned up my herb garden by getting rid of anything that was dead and planting some new seeds (I also bought a couple more succulents at the grocery store) and did my family Zoom call on Sunday. So not a waste of a weekend, but still not as effective as I need weekends to be.

Yesterday was Monday and I worked and went to the doctor in the afternoon and that ate up so much time I didn’t get to run. The doctor gave me a referral to physical therapy for my shoulder, so that’s good, but I kind of don’t want to do that sort of frequent close-contact stuff until I get my second shot, so I’m not sure how to handle that yet.

Today work will be a lot of meetings and I just hope there is time in between to get things done. We are going to plan on going running right at 5pm when I clock off. That means I have to clock off at 5pm. With last week being all weird, I haven’t gotten to enjoy the upside of the later sunsets (ie: more running time), so hopefully that will start today.

That’s where I will focus this week: just getting out the door for those longer runs.

The one area where I have COMPLETELY failed is in the mornings. I’m supposed to be getting up at 6am and doing a half hour of yoga and I have been consistently not doing that. The mornings here have been just the right kind of cold where I can’t quite bring myself to crawl out of my nice warm bed. I’ve also been waking up tired because even though I get in bed on schedule at 10pm, I am not going to sleep. I blame the phone. I know! I know! No blue light in bed, but the thing is I haven’t been TIRED at 10pm. But that’s what the runs are for; you make the body that good kind of tired so it can drag the brain off to sleep.

Okay, so that is the stock taking today. Let’s see how this goes.

Sorry this blog post is boring, but I needed to write it.

.

.

.

HELLO The INTERNET!

Hello blog! The Internet! And the World!

Did you miss me … Oh. Did you even realize I was gone … Oh … Well I have to tell you, that’s a real blow to my ego …

Well, anyway.

I had a crazy-busy month of September and was not able to post at all. Here is how it all went down:

I went white water rafting on the American River (Rated A for “Awesome”!)

I worked my ass off at work in preparation for my Grand Canyon trip (Rated F for “Sucked”)

I went on my Grand Canyon trip (Rated AAA for “Awesome Association of America”!)

I came back and worked my ass off at work to make up for being gone on my Grand Canyon trip (Rated F+ for “Super-Sucked”)

I got really sick with a monster cold (Rated P for “Extremely Phlegm-y”)

And by then the month was over. See how time flies when you are alternating between awesomeness and sucking? I guess that in that regard I had a very bi-polar month. Oh! Additionally my cat Lilith (who is almost ten years old) has started having some health problems and I have taken her to the vet like 19 times in the last week and a half. No kidding, I have spent like $600 bucks that I don’t have on cat medical care. In the last week she has been to the doctor more times than I have in the last five years. Poor thing is all shaved down in weird places from all the tests they have done.

But you don’t want to hear about all that! Unless you’re some sort of freakish feline voyeur with a mean-streak, in which case … dude, seek help.

I will be easing back into this blogging-ness; I think we need to get to know each other again, you know? I think we shouldn’t take it too fast … all that.

But here are things that I am working on to share with you:

1)
Notes from my Grand Canyon trip, including, but not limited to:

- How I wasn’t technically in the Grand Canyon.

- How the hell does “40% chance of rain” actually mean “rain 40% of the time”?

- Dead horses.

- The string of curse words which is most appropriate when the hammock you are sleeping in falls to the ground with you in it.
- Camping beards.
- All of the ways in which I am an awesome adventure person (if we ignore all of the complaining I did).

2)
NANOWRIMO starts November 1st!
And since I am better at failing than at anything else, I am eagerly anticipating the beginning of National Novel Writer’s Month. However since I have actually been doing some real writing as of late, I have NO IDEA what to write about in November. So get ready for a lot of posts like:

Um … does this sound like an interesting idea for a novel? “A teenage girl falls in love with a teenage vampire and problems ensue.” Like, is that interesting? No … probably not, huh?

3)
How I am attempting to learn yoga from a video I bought at Target and how – believe it or not – Yoga is actually pretty cool. Even if you’re like me and probably doing it wrong!

4)
Some ruminations on life. I have been doing some reflecting and realized that 2011 has been a year of highs and lows and very little in-betweens. And why I seem to be in a perpetual funk lately.

5)
All the crap I normally write about:
- How Republicans are terrible
- Poetry that is bad
- Ways in which I find myself to be delightful
- Complaints
- Whimsy

Oh blog, we have so much catching up to do!

.
.
.

Plans and Maybe some Yoga.

Oh dear blog. I have been driving myself nuts lately contemplating the future. Or rather: THE FUTURE!

And I don’t just mean hover boards and meal pills that taste like an entire Thanksgiving dinner. No. I mean my own future (sadly I do not see myself owning a hover board any time soon).

As you well know, I am a failure at life and school, as I was recently rejected from some of the best writing programs in the country. This has left me wondering what I am going to do with myself when I graduate in May. Thus far I have come up with the brief outlines of a plan. I will discuss this plan with you now.

First! I will keep writing. I have been writing my whole life and almost none of it was for school. I am going to get back to a place where I write for the joy of doing it.

So that being said, here is what I am going to do:

I have a play to finish. It is a cute and charming play and I like it very much and have not gone near it in ages because I have been in short-fiction mode since I went back to school. And believe it or not, the LA theatre scene can be broken into.

I have a half-written screenplay to finish. It is kind of about Jesus and it is also kind of funny and I think I can finish it really fast if I can dedicate a couple of weeks to it. Also, I need to have a script in the hopper because the final edit of 'Strange Angel' is almost done. We hope to finally sent it out to the festivals!

Also, I have a 130,000 word novel that really needs some editing and some tender loving care. I think that if I can get it cleaned up then I can send it out to agents.

Also, I have a half-written novel that I adore but just haven’t had the time to go back to because it is kind of complicated to write. It is basically a love story and I think that I have kept them apart for too long!

Also, I have enough short work to put a collection together, so I’m contemplating going to a print-on-demand publisher and trying to self-promote. I know, that doesn’t sound dignified, but everybody seems to be saying that it’s the way publishing is going to work now. I’m tempted to try it out, if only because it’s an area where nothing is set in stone yet, there is no clear path. It’s all “new media” wild west. I find that intriguing.

Also, I have a bunch of short work laying around and I haven’t really been submitting it out to the world, so I need to get myself a new Writer’s Market book and get my work out there.

But before I get to any of that, I think that I need to re-train myself as a writer. Not a student of writing. I think that as soon as I’m done with this semester I’m going to start work on ONE PROJECT. Just one! I think that I’m going to work on a short novel. Something that will let me purge all of this pretentious writerly crap I have been learning the last two years. I need a project that I can write on every day. Something that lets me stretch the way that writing for workshops can’t. I need to get in the habit of sitting in front of a keyboard everyday.

Oh! That also means that I will be writing to you more, my dear blog. So get ready for more of my life (such as it is). I have not really been a life-blogger up to this point, but what the hell. I have to start doing more then posting links, right?
And that’s just the writing.

There actually is real life stuff to figure out too. Violet and I are contemplating moving to a different part of LA when our lease is up in a few months. We live in Santa Clarita (which isn’t really even LA) and it is nice and easy in a yuppie suburb kind of way, but we are thinking that we can get a cheaper rent if we move south, out of this Starbucks Stepford. And I really do want to live in a place. I would love to be able to walk to dinner or to the grocery store. I would love to be able to walk to the corner and buy a paper. I don’t know if that is practical, but there are some places in LA where it is possible. So who knows, this may turn out to be an interesting year.

No matter what happens I think that I will apply to grad school again in the Fall. I need to put together a different kind of list this time. I need to worry less about the funding (it hurts me just to type that) and more about what will be best for me. I need to worry less about reputation and more about aesthetic.

In other news, I am considering taking up yoga. Yes, yoga. I’ve been on overdrive for three years (working and getting myself educated). I was thinking about the numbers the other day and I average about 36 hours of work a week (that includes my time on the weekends), 12 hours in class each week, 8 hours driving (about 45 minutes each way for school) and (on a good week) about 6 – 10 hours of school work at home. So I think that maybe some yoga would help me down-shift. And maybe I will even be able to detox off these god damn energy drinks.

So dear blog, those are my plans, as far as I have been able to conceive of them so far. It is possible that I’m loading myself up with a lot of expectations because I’m terrified of the possibility of stillness, but hey maybe I should get a therapist. I will add that to the list!

.
.
.
.
.