Accidental Troll

Is it bad that when I post I note I don't post anymore? It's just when I finally do, I'm stunned at how things have changed. I'm still crazy, in the sense that my emotions do not seem reasonably supported by circumstances, but they change my behavior far less than they used to, and I'm usually comfortable or just plan happy. I seem life functional so while I always like to improve, things seem good today.

Except for my perpetual state of first-world homelessness.

House update:
Contractor has gone radio silent, and with some nudging I issued an ultimatum/deadline which expired. I'm now waiting for the lawyer to contact me and start action. I had 6-8 people look at the job, but only 3 provided bids. I may not be able to afford both the bid-prices for the work and legal action.

The house issues are the constant source of relationship tension, that and how I get defensive when she is more driven than I am for action. I took the time to count how much money I lost in lost rent, but the emotional toll is immeasurable. I can't believe how incredibly I fucked this whole thing up.

Gym:
Nothing exciting. I've gone from plain 5-3-1 to the big but boring reps game. I'm likely about to reset as I'm plateauing on squats and DL. Sadly this is only about my old weights, but I've been pushing myself for a long time. I watch form videos and read articles more than I used to.

I also look at old people and read a bit more about aging. I might be able to lift longer, but it's possible I'll lose the ability at some point. Running or other cardio work is an option, and probably healthier in many ways, but right now this is fun and working for me.

Oddly lifting is not social. You do it alone - also like running. But I tried for years to be social with boxing, and it went nowhere. Some people parlay athleticism into friends, but I have not been able to do that. However, I seem to appear muscular, and am still confident, so I have an easier time in casual social engagements from near-altercations on public transportation, to the reaction when I'm nice or smiling at people. I used to wonder how much of my interactions were based on my hair - now my shoulders. Meh.

Deadline to move to dreamwidth?

I'm less depressed over politics. Good news, the right is so insane it's in the public eye now. The left might be pulling it's head out of it's collective ass - memes mock Stein's latest stupidity similar to dumpsterfire. My favorite quote was from the gym "They're coming out during the day now."

Gotta buy the girl a ring; been shopping. Ethics matter in shopping for crap fwiw

Gym:
My shoulder still bothers me but my weights have all recovered or are leaping up (bench is still off, but may be only 10%). I have been rolling and stretching, but still my ankles are too prone to move and my shoulder too unlikely to. I did start running but have not kept up...my gym location is a real issue, as is coordinating my schedule with the girl. I've started in on full relationship nag with the girl, as her need to take classes is a scheduling and logistical nightmare that impacts us both. Also, she literally has no gains. So I'm pimping strength and trying to stretch myself to more therapeutic workouts (i.e. face pulls), and trying to drag her with me. I think she'd be better at, and happier with, strength training than her "weights cardio." However she's a grown damn woman, smart, and better at her things than I am, so she might destroy me at some point. No mansplaining.

I'm revisiting form. With my side-pull injury crap, and after watching that yes, even with shoes on my ankles move, it's a good idea to reground myself. This weekend the gf is out of town so I can do crazy long workouts instead of cram it into an hour workout. Less huge lifts, more cardio/conditioning, and more support work would be good for me. I'm trying to drag the gf with me into "have a plan, one that doesn't require fees or scheduled appointments" type workouts. I can generally take my gear and go to any decent gym on the day in question and do my workout.

House:
The contractor has not shown up once since xmas, other than one time to tweak the heat. His stories and plan made sense, but I fear the reality is he hasn't paid the/an electrician which is holding up the permit. Girl went online into his finances and found his property has equity, but the water company has put liens on his property. Twice. I don't want to sue a guy to suck the value out of his house when he has a young child, but at some point if I don't - if he loses it, I don't want to be last in line.

I got Scott to paint and fix up the Arlington place, to be rented soon. With the condo paying a bunch of it, and trusting his schedule and work product, it made sense - having interacted with him as he found quirks along the way? Very happy and worth the premium price (plus Joe cheapo never bid/showed).

I just got a bill from DC as they called my work likely 60% or more complete, with increases the value of my home by about $90,000, pumping my taxes and mortgage to cover.

I love my house. I love my hood. Neither is perfect.

Ugh, I wrote a post at work about work, but can't post it from that location so... It'll get pasted later.

I have not been using the phone app. The iphone 5s is tiny and my eyemeats are too old to see the thing.

I'm spending a surprising amount of time walking around pokemon-ing. It's cutting into my diablo time. It's fun that I get to do it with the gf. I'm not embarrassed that I'm playing a child's game - I watched the cartoon in my late 20s or early 30s. But it's weird that I'm walking outside so much for...a game, when for health and the environment I've generally chosen to drive. It makes me question my priorities, competitiveness, and general silliness. Why do I play games so much? Why don't I read, stretch, socialize, or do important things more?

It's labor day weekend, my gf comes back today after a long trip and I'm looking forward to hibernating with her, the windows are open for the first time since HEAT and I'm sipping coffee before the rest of the world thinks about waking up. I feel good.

But old. ohmifuck I'm getting old. It happens in odd steps rather than a slow curve. Today's issue is with the gf out of town, I've let my goat face come in and my chin has obvious white hairs. I have white PUBIC hairs - many (as I shave, I rarely see them - so when I'm lazy and gross it's a shock to see what changed). I'm 48 and many of my friends have lost hair or had gray since 30 or even younger - but this is my experience. I have more hair on my neck - again I'm hairless compared to normal people, but this is me. Oddly the hair is disappearing from my legs, but ... it's growing on my ears. You can't see it/them yet, but it's becoming more obvious, common, and actual hair like than downy invisible fuzz. Hair grows in my nose - I had to force myself to admit that. It's beyond gross.

I. Can't. See. I've had good enough to 20/20 vision my whole life, and now it is literally a daily struggle to see. I see fine with reading glasses on, but to lug them around is a pain and it's a pain and embarrassing to unfold them to view something for 5 seconds. The meat of my eye has stopped growing, is getting stiff, and is drying up. I'm dying a little at a time, with each organ I never think about going through various degrees of depreciation at varying rates. I have some random spots of pigment on my face - age spots I think. I have freckles throughout my sleeve tan. My feet have some patches of dry, hard, skin. My gray hairs in front are spreading. The signs of death can be fought but are growing in degree and number.

Gym - I just saw the doctor and yes, I have the beginning of real age problems. I have literally shrunk because my spine is compressing - and traction won't do a thing about it. Some discs are better than others, and surgery is an option plus far easier than thought - but I'm nowhere near needing it. Still, my discs are showing degeneration normal due to age, and they do things like compress nerves. If I didn't work out I may not know, so it's good to get this lesson now. The doctor specifically said even if I wanted surgery, it's out-patient and low-risk, but he'd refuse because it's not worth it. It's odd to have to step out of my workout emphasis and admit whether I bench 155 or 235 is not important. But I walk away with no answer to my "How did I get injured, and how do I prevent it" question other than "time and death." He said I am able to work out with good form as much as I like.

The doc also said I was his easiest patient that day. The wall was covered with ads for pain-med-to-spine pumps, nerve blockers, and warnings about opioid abuse. I remember the pain from both times I popped a nerve, and it seems this is something that happens with age. I didn't notice a lot of the aging process due to the gym - not a bad thing. I feel pain all the time, but it's from or overridden by my soreness for strength training.

Socially my gym workout is a disaster. I feel part of a "team" when I work out alone, happy to help others but not making friends. In fact I'm far more happy alone than ever in my life, but I'm also far happier and comfortable with friends than I used to be too. Confidence has been a huge issue in my life, both as an unknown disabling condition and a great benefit. I'm better than the morons who bench press and hip-thrust-bicep-fake-curl and think women will fuck them for their arm meat, but still...why do I enjoy being strong for a little person?

I don't intend to change - I know I need to do more cardio, but I don't enjoy it and I always fall off the bandwagon. My gf is too good to really run with her, or that's my excuse. Feels real. But while my workout may be silly, it has me a) going to the gym 4 days a week, b) doing yoga-like stretching, c) discovering health issues, d) correcting my posture in my daily life, e) saving a fortune on antidepressants or therapy because I'm always hopped up on endorphins, f) learning more and practicing social skills with brief stranger encounters (which matters, but that's another post), and of course e) getting some cardio exercise, even if it's intermittent and moderate rather than the long painful burn of running.

House, briefly: I'm not moving in this labor day weekend. Although Jordan was "mostly done" last week...well I stopped by the place yesterday evening and he was there, and explained he only has ONE EMPLOYEE right now, but he just got paid on another job so he's more flush. He said he'll be there - he "hopes" Monday (he's flexible with his folks) but definitely Tuesday. They have to thread electric and do detail work. He noted one of his employees also has his own crew (a subcontractor with subcontractors). The remaining bill has dropped more, by around 10fuckingthousand.

It sounds silly but it's been near-ready to move in for ages. I'm looking forward to moving in. I am looking forward to not being spread between 3 places and driving all the time, worried about jams and rush hour. At least the house is...liveable now, almost. There is electricity, lights, floors you can walk on, water and toilets...it's not a shell. It's just not done. The a/c condensation pump is running off a switch in the front hallway...

Enough coffee-infused writing: back to playing diablo before I do squats at the gym, which is about 7 pokestops from here (because yellow has taken over all 5 gyms I can see from here, no gold for me today)

Huh...benched a whopping 135 for 5 reps today, with the last 2 uneven. Still, that's 100 lbs less than my max and I couldn't do that 5 times. So, slowly I'm improving. My triceps feel weird still, but I wonder if that's good.

Asked a 70 year old man for a spot, a not-touch spot just in case I had problems. This led to a long conversation about how he used to be a 235 lb football player until his spine needed surgery. Dude was FURIOUS at being skinny at 70 in the gym. I wonder how lucky I am to discover my spine and muscle imbalances while I'm almost 50 fucking years young. I might be able to fix my spine. I hope to be a scary old fucker at 70.

Somebody flagged me as adult content. Ick, I'm click-I'm-18 material now. Huh.

I need to do a long post about machismo, image marketing, and a proposed strategy of publicizing the virtues of choice - of the benefits of choosing to be wealthy, and the benefits of choosing not to take on so much investment and responsibility. I'm serious, but need to develop the issue.

Bought an iphone so I'm being obnoxious on fb. And in general. The 13-year-old girl in me is never buried deep. Saddest discovery is the iphone 5s has better audio than this dinosaur laptop.

I've lost at least 10 lbs since I was injured.

The rebirth of an alchem picture page, hiking this past week, a book called "American Idle," and my rain of injuries has me nostalgic and rethinking exercise - in a good way I hope.

I can still hike; I still leap over rocks like a goat; I may not face the same back tension/pain I used to (meaning my struggle to correct apt / muscle imbalances, while not over, are indeed making progress woot woot). I saw unfit people aging; I saw children playing, and reflected on what is natural. One nice conclusion is: natural sucks. We're designed to survive adversity, and for every benefit, there are drawbacks. A bear can sleep all winter and get up full strength, while a man confined to bed for a month is unable to walk. Sadly exercise does not erase sedentary life, but exercise does not need to be competition.

Cute class physical perspective: back in the early days of the olympics the difference between what athletes did and the population was far less than today.

lj guilt hint - if you feel like writing, don't feel obligated to catch up with the week of posts you missed first.

I think I've identified a problem in my shoulder which might be the source of my nerve pinch, or a problem caused by it, but in any case I need to do more work. As for the weakness, it remains but seems to be slowly going away. It seems obvious I won't be healed in the 6-month window, but I'm grateful that I can still squat full strength or close to it, have a reasonable DL, and even the OP isn't too crazy far off. Even the bench has gone from 95 to 115, though...that's still annoying, as are the other problems like not being able to sleep on one side or prop myself up on my elbow.

My bigger idea is more hiking. It feels good, and having done it a few times this past week, I kinda miss it. The problem here is it takes 1.5-2 hours to get to a good place to mountain-in-shade hike, but I think I'm going to put more effort into making occasional trips, doing some run-walk outside, and doing some run-walk on treadmills. I am already more likely to stand at the desk than sit - one improvement.

I like strong better than skinny, but I also like the confident comfortable me more than the insecure me (though I still love the pictures of fairy princess me).

This is that curious hour where I've "slept in," per my usual internal clock, and she's not going to be up for hour(s). I wish she'd wake up because then we can get coffee (coffee out is today's plan). Also, I want to see her! It's funny as now I tiptoe around the house to keep from waking her, while if we were at her place by now the cat would walk on her face (without waking her). Last night was dinner and theatre with friends, but I was happy to retreat home with her instead of clubbing out (I didn't want to see a band play). We hit the H STreet/Atlas arcade, and she understood better how excited I was about the ones in Cincinnati and Raleigh.

So both Prince and Michael J died because they were in religious cults that don't let them get medical treatment leading to their use of strong pain medications? Makes me less sympathetic and likely to forgive the homophobia from Prince, even while I stand back and let my friends separate the art from the creator. I'd be happy if the person who made the music I found transformational was in similar spaces, or respectable ones, but my takeaway is the experience I had was mine. There are friends and authors I may owe pieces of my current self, but it'll be a rare musician.

Everyone has headphones on. I used to listen to music really loud in my house; I'm not sure my mother should have let me. Still, to me it had to be loud music and not headphones - the fact it was actually playing made it more real.

I'm in PT and it's curious - they literally put me in traction with a mechanical device pulling on my neck to spread my vertebre. I see posture fixing a big part of the therapy, so the fact I've been practicing with the standing desk is a very good, if too late, thing. I'm not convinced they haven't missed a pulled muscle or something in the shoulder but I'm doing all I can to keep active. I'm still making a strength out of it where I can, locking in more form and enjoying the not-death post workout feeling. Today I can feel yesterday's squats yelling at me.

And yesterday we ran into the contractor in my home, that's on Sat, and the kitchen cabinets, in boxes, were in the kitchen. He said they'd be installing them tomorrow. He said he was glad to be back in there, looking forward to finally getting me in...but it took me yelling and nearly firing him to make it happen so I'm not sure I understand his emotional statements. We went over various things that are in process or need doing - he encouraged us to perhaps live there before deciding if we needed ceiling fans, but also recommended a local / non-lowes-HD shop where we went after the gym and about lost our minds on all the choices. Big black square chandelier LED light? 1950s sci-fi ceiling fan? Birdcage chandelier? Got all that.

The idea that I'll be moving and living in DC, in that house, doesn't feel real.

Tried the gym and I have serious problems. Even warming up, I started to jump up and down and it hurt my ribcage. I did light squats and my arm and fingers tingled. I tried light overhead press and it felt odd but went up...perhaps uneven. Then I tried pull-ups and went up at an angle, as my left arm didn't pull.

I can't jump up and down, and that's to say I can't run - or shouldn't run - as just bouncing makes my back feel like it's pulling on my nerves across my shoulder, back, and down my arm.

Just like last time I had nerve damage, the muscle isn't firing or working under control. I'm not sure who to check in with - GP? Ortho again? I can email the ortho and he'll probably respond. I could also just go light a couple weeks and see if I get better in a few weeks.

I'm not in immediate pain (that would be cute if I returned to extreme pain too) but I'm completely fucked.

Out of commission: I can't work out atm. It's an upcoming down week anyway, but I've had a nagging pain in my shoulder which slowly, without any known injuries or events, got worse. Well, now it's a steady dull pain buried deep in my shoulder that seems related to my neck. I can kill the pain with 400mg ibuprofen, but it's too bad to work out. Hopefully a week off will result in recovery.

Part of the reason I'm not writing is I'm rabidly addicted to diablo again. Yay diablo. I'm writing in part because I'm home sick...3rd time this season, and I'm sick of diablo for at least 10 minutes.

I work out a lot - I should not be sick. I guess this is how I'm wired. Should I not pass my weak genes on? I had 2 colds this winter, neither of which effected my gf. She got sick and I thought I'd probably already had it...and now in the requisite incubation period, I'm sick. On the other hand, I intend to live a long time
(unless somebody crosses me, then I'll show him I'll go the whole way)
and it's far better to face these germs now than to get sick at 70.
(note to self - flu shot! I'm late!)

But for a gym post - this is boring. I'm happy with the gym and not lagging after setting my records. Part of the happy reason why I'm happy is that I'm still getting stronger. Slowly. But that's kind of how it's supposed to work - slowly, over time, with hard work, you get stronger. What I squatted 4 times a month ago I did 5 times this week, 3 times a month ago 4 times this week. 1 rep there, 10 lbs there, and I keep growing. Yay.

The only other gymmy thing I have going on is getting better at socializing. I've learned either to approach people that need major form tips, or how to give form tips to people that will not mind receiving them. One big lesson I learned is simply "hit and run." Don't chat all day - just give a main point, compliment the good stuff, and get the hell out of there. That minuses the creep factor a great deal.

Or maybe I just look like I want to help - like yesterday, when this skinny kid was squatting and his knees were collapsing so bad they practically knocked. I couldn't help "asking" if he wanted an unsolicited tip, despite the leavemealonephones. He was very receptive, and I noted his depth was great and his back looked good, but his knees...and he knew it, noting as I did when I was less experienced, that he's fine at lower weights...so I recommended both that he "spread the floor" (and explained what that is and feels like) and that he check form tips on utube videos. Perhaps it was the age difference. Perhaps it was the fact I was pressing what he was squatting. Perhaps he lacked the social skills to tell the creepy wannabe coach to go away. But he thanked me profusely and I told him to think nothing of it. This seems to be happening more.

I also, fwiw, sometimes ask super strong guys for pointers when I see them doing something I am not familiar with but that doesn't look idiotic.

I remember going to a gym outside B'more that had a bar. I'd like to own a gym with a bar - I would call the bar "Fuck it."

I'm happy - killing the urge to write.

Since coming home I've been indulging in a minor diablo 3 addiction. Not sure why I like putting this puzzle together over and over but I do. I had a great weekend with the gf, who is showing her patient side as I ramble and fail to plan things. She's more a schedule events type, I'm the laze around type and motivate after work is done. We made the time to lounge a lot, failed at some planning things mostly due to me, and as always ate and drank out a bunch.

I'm a bit tame about eating out as my last credit card bill was huge. A grand of it was for the vanity in the house, but the rest was not - holidays or not, that's got to stop. Food and booze can be had at home.

The house had a sad lack of progress and I met with the contractor and Scott about it yesterday. I have no set move-in date. The key is getting the heat on, which despite prior projections is not yet done. The kitchen cabinets haven't arrived from the manufacturer yet, but they are a usual 6 week turn-around time so they're about due (not sure why I heard they'd be in earlier). I know a lot more about my hvac systems now.

I'm a little proud I kept the gym up and diet reasonable on this past work trip. Sat I confirmed my squat max is 345, though unlike last time I was able to do that weight for 2 or 3 singles. I'm probably too satisfied with my slow progress and am trying to do DL on squat day and squats on DL day too, but not 8 sets of 3 or sets of 10. I OP 145 for 4 on the federal employee only holiday MiLK, but that still only counts as a max 155. Tomorrow we see if I get a new DL max and the outlook is bright.

I have tons to do at work but the time to do it. I'm still enjoying work, but pushing myself to apply for that much more lucrative FDIC job even if I don't really want it.

I'm a bit slack in the rest of my life and probably need to focus a bit more. Tax time...oh and DC sent me the notice of the refund they meant to pay me but still have not done. They say these last 2 months or so are delays due to the need to compute interest. So they not only haven't paid me because they can't do math and/or don't use free easily available online calculators, but have now all but billed me for the money they admit I didn't get.

As you see I'm lazy about writing but not feeling guilty. I definitely have been cashing in on mental vacation time.