The Aerie
Okay, so I feel like I'm finally facing forward. Dad's dead and his
ashes safely buried, so his return as a brain-craving zombie is
unlikely. (You'd think after those Dawn of the Dead movies the entire
culture would embrace cremation as a precaution.) His birthday was
yesterday, so that little emotional speedbump has been overcome -- at
least until next year. And now, today, a week into the New Year, I
finally feel like I'm facing forward rather than downward or backward.
Of course I have several New Year's resolutions to keep. The first is
the gym. Last year at this time I resolved to hit the gym six days a
week for at least a month, and I did it. Then in February I got fancy
and tried to intermix aikido practice with trips to the gym.
Of course, the whole thing fell apart.
I'm just not that clever -- I can't manage things that go
every-other-day. I'd go to aikido, then to the gym, and the next day I
couldn't remmeber, had I gone to aikido yesterday, or the gym?
Confused, I went to neither place.
Which is not to say I stopped working out. No, but I'd broken my
regular morning regime, and once broken it was hard to restart. I did
alright, I hit the gym with fair regularity, and dropped my weight
below 200lbs for the first time in at least a decade.
So this year, no monkeying around. I miss the aikido, but I need the
gym more. Once I become wealthy enough to never have to work again, I
can start going to aikido. Well, hopefully sooner than that, but for
now I'm not ready.
My other resolution is around nutrition -- gotta cut back the carbs
and add on the protein. I'm not an Atkins diet guy -- yet -- but I'm
reasonably convinced that I eat too many carbs and drink too little
water. We'll see how that goes.
Then I have to resume giving blood. I was giving blood quite regularly
until November. At that point the Red Cross instituted a new set of
ridiculously time-consuming processes surrounding donations. Now, I'm
actually fine with that, except that I went to THREE appointments, and
was kept waiting up to an hour each time, before even STARTING the
process.
I don't have that kind of time, I just don't. At least not without
warning. I mean, okay, you want my blood? Then tell me "Okay this
appointment is going to take three hours." That would be FINE. I'd put
it in my datebook, "Monday, 9-12, Red Cross", no sweat. But when I
come in the third time, having ASKED "Will I be done by 10? 11?" And
been assured that all would be well only to find myself still in the
lobby at 10, THEN I get annoyed.
But they need my blood (and YOURS too), so, regardless, I'm going to
have to figure out a way to give it to them, despite their
bureaurcacy.
Another resolution is to go over this website at some point and fix it
up. Unlike Lileks (who apparently not only lives in the 1950's, but
actually experiences days with more hours in them than I have) I don't
have the personal bandwidth to rebuild my website every month. Or
every year. But this site is about due. I want to gussy it up, add
slicker buttons and bars, and most of all GET RID OF ALL THE DEAD
LINKS, thankyouverymuch.
But before I can get to that, I have to do about twenty other projects
first, such as build a website for my birthmother, sell all my
father's silver spoons on eBay (the man may not have been born with a
silver spoon in his mouth, but he died with about 100 in his closet),
rewrite Mitlanyal before March, and take care of a million things
regarding my business.
But for now: exercise is back on track. That'll have to be good
enough.
(After getting my 5K row down to 20:08, a month's absence has it back
up to 20:48! Woe!)