Superpowers

Yeah, it's been a while. In my defense, I'm having to relearn how to type with the right side of my body, which isn't fun.

The staples are out and I've transitioned to the phase of my recovery where I'm working the arm to restore its mobility. I about three weeks, I should have that down to the point where I can start rebuilding functional strength.

It hasn't stopped hurting, but it's to the point where I can feel the weight of the plate inside my arm. It's stiff, unyielding, and right now it interferes with moving the arm around. It's a bit creepy.

But on the other hand, this should be a temporary thing. And when it's all said and done, I'm going to have a titanium-reinforced skeleton! I will be a living union of man and machine!!

...

...Okay, so just one bone has the plating, and the machine parts are as simple as they come, but for as big a fan of comics as I am this is still kind of cool.

Still Swinging

Posts about deep personal reflection and the value of life lived versus the life unlived seems like low-hanging fruit, still. So in an effort to avoid being maudlin, here's a fictional couplet:

Here I sit, broken arm-ed,
Thought to fart, but rather sharted.

Unused Munitions?

It occurs to me that one of my best counter-offensives in fighting the universe, which has levelled some genius volleys in my direction recently, is one that the medium of blogs was more or less designed for. Tonally, it may seem out of place, but hell, it's not like much has been IN place lately.

So here it goes. The highlight of my day:

I pooped A LOT! Like, in a toilet. Bunch of times, too!

Thatt genuinely makes me feel better. Ah, the internet. Where were we as a society without you?

What's the Word?

I have the sense that I want to do something (not just be able to move my right arm), but I also have the sense that I want to do nothing. Or maybe I want to do some particular kind of nothing.

Some language or another has to have a word for that? Right?

Broken Cycles

Got off track for a few days, didn't I? My excuse? I broke my right arm Friday night, and didn't get out of the hospital until Sunday.

Alright, *I* didn't break my arm. The fall did, from the roof I was on trying to fix a leak.

So I'm going to be much less efficient for the next week or two. Typing with my left hand is annoying.

On the one hand (see what I did there?), I want to applaud the universe for delivering such a mighty blow. On the other hand, it's unsettling to think about how easily the universe could've finished me off right then.

Ugh, the next few weeks are going to crawl so slow! Anyone want to take dictation for me for the next month?

Filler

I've heard a few people say that it's important to write in a project every day, even if it's just a couple of words, to keep the momentum up.

This is one of those days when I try that euphemism out.

Good Days

Every so often, the universe doesn't fight me so much. I have a good day.

Today's felt pretty good. I woke up pretty positive, and got a lot done at work already. There's plenty of the day left to go, but there's nothing in particular I'm feeling anxious about.

To reward this good turn of fortune, I'm pulling out a gif about the dark side of mattress testing. Enjoy!

Skippage

I managed to not write anything in this blog yesterday. Instead of declaring the experiment (and by proxy, myself) a failure, I'm gonna let that little blip happen and move on.

Lots of aspects of the human condition work on a scale, not the binary systems that are easier to wrap a head around. Sexuality is one, self-perception another, and I'm ready to add sleep cycles to the list.

I'm a weird kind of insomniac. I'm not a morning person, but I'm not much of a night person either. Usually I'll hit a wall sometime around midnight where I just know I'm not going to do anything until I get some sleep, but then I'll sit in bed for hours not sleeping.

If I get up and try to do something with my sleeplessness, about all I can manage is watching the wall paint age. It's not nearly as rewarding as watching wine or cheese age, in fact it's pretty thankless, but it's got to be done and dammit I am stepping up! I am the fucking master of watching paint age, and all y'all better recognize!

But as skills go, yeah, this is kind of a lame one.

And I'm not the sort of person that can get by with just a few hours sleep, either. Too many nights like the one above and the fatigue I feel (spending my days generally fighting off the relentless onslaught of the universe's forces) makes it a lot harder to get my head together.

So a few years back a doctor prescribed ambien. I don't take it every night because it doesn't work if you try to use it every night, and I don't want to be the kind of person that needs something every night to sleep. And even if I space it out, there's the occasional night where it takes a few hours to kick in versus the less-than-an-hour it's supposed to. But when it works? Glorious.

In order to achieve a similar night's sleep without it, I'd have to push myself through two workouts involving heavy cardio, spend two hours in deep creative work, and have something with alcohol in it. And not have slept for a few days beforehand.

Well played, universe.

Days Off

I often feel like I should be doing something "constructive", If I'm not, something inside my head chides me for sloth, it doesn't matter what I've already done on a given day. That makes trying to sleep fun.

So on days when I don't already have something scheduled and I know I need to rest, actually resting feels... icky.

So today I'm binge-watching The Walking Dead and awaiting a delivered pizza. Let's see how that goes.

Reprieves

I don't have a medical regimen per second to aide me in my struggle with the universe. Maybe I should, but for now I manage without.

I am developing a series of habits that give me intermissions, chunks of my waking day that don't feel like I'm fighting through the day. They include:
-Meditation. Regulated breathing in a position between relaxed and controlled, not interacting with reality but vaguely aware of it.
    This is like a diplomatic summit where we negotiate,a cease-fire. It doesn't last, but it is refreshing.
-Yoga. A semi-aggresive program that forces me to use most of my body in a taxing way all at once. I like this a lot better than weights because it feels like I'm working out whole muscle systems instead of one group at a time.
    This serves two purposes. 1) I train for the next volley the universe throws at me, and 2) this helps my body feel as worn-out as my brain by the end of the day, which makes me feel a bit more balanced at least.

Now I've got this blog. This blog reminds me that I am fighting. Sometimes it feels like I'm just getting beaten, so it's nice to have something that proves it's not a one-way fight.

Parties

"Social anxiety" as a term bugs me,only because I don't understand how some people seem to not have it.

Any time I'm with a group of people, part of me takes the scene in and checks a few things out.
1) There are more people here than me, and the consensus is probably that I should keep my pants on.
2) I probably don't know these people as well as I think I do, and most wouldn't want to hear talk of pants.
3) They are human, just like me, and each have their own unique relationship with the universe.

At this point, I figure everyone is on the same page, but there's still plenty of room for variation. Trying to figure out who in a given room is willing to talk about how much pants is a universal source of anxiety. If a person isn't anxious about it before striking up a conversation, they usually are after.

But with people that deal with "social anxiety", there's at least one more criterion. Some variation of
4) The universe probably likes these people more than me.

And when one considers how many entities are in the room or the world or the universe, that's a real concern. Or it seems that way to me.

So if it's real, why should anyone be anxious about it? And if it isn't real, how do so many notice it in the first place?