Not saying I’ve actually been trying to do something good – at all. It’s been about 24 months since I’ve had a regular gym routine. About 4 years since I followed an eating plan and about 14 years since I’ve been my “ideal weight”. New norm much lately?

But — is this survival. I had another scare again where I contemplated an explosive end to my source of income. Every layoff survived, every volatile interaction makes me realize how delicate this situation really is. I mean you don’t need much to survive… only about 7,000 or so a month… hahah… hahaha… no really… it’s close to that.

Merica amiright?

I could give up my cable, car, facials, hair coloring, clothing, beer, food, utilities, braces, child care, health care, heat, toiletries… cat food. I mean – we used to live in caves (but now that’s illegal except in California).

What to do, what to do? Focus on what? Diet? CPTSD? Love Addiction? Food Addiction? Alcohol Addiction? Budgeting… Fitness? Meditation? FUCK… everything… everything… feels like a self-improvement novel. 

I feel like the Victorians didn’t stress so much – take your Laudanum, have a rest on the fainting couch and CHILL already. Everything will work out until you die of typhoid or something else ghastly at the ripe age of 32…

Thus the problem… now I’m 41? What do?

Try to do something “good” everyday.

So captain’s log – day 1:

1. Blogged
2. 10 deadlifts, 10 kettlebell swings, 10 squats…
3. Applied for one job
4. Cleaned out my desk a little
5. Tried to not buy anything new except for Trader Joe’s stuff (I mean come on… that Chinese 5 Spice Salad and Cheese tapas plate – that shit is good)

Intent for tomorrow – 10-20 minute morning jog (if not I will be punished by making it an evening jog.)

Maybe blog again.

Not fantasize too much about all that vacancy in my life.

When you been riding a train for so long it can be hard to get off. Extremely hard to get off. I’m talking 2+ decades long train of vice hard to get off. My adult life has been one excess after another. Whether that be E.L. Fudges, Takis (hence title), beer, reality shows, coffee, Rockstars, cigarettes, beer, beer, beer… the list goes on. That I slip into just mindless consumption of junk and can’t seem to pull myself out of it. I KNOW what I should be eating, doing, etc. – starts with not eating anything I can get at a gas station. (FYI – E.L. in E.L. Fudge stands for Everybody Loves – the more you know people, the more you know.)

When presented with a choice I will inevitable always choose the wrong/easy way. Not saying I’m always like that. I have a way of correcting just enough to keep myself from completely tanking, but not enough to feel good about my life choices. I have moments where I will rise about my big mamma eating habits and have brief periods of self love and sanity. But like flowers for Algernon, it’s only a matter of time before I slip back into the murky water.

So coming to again from a night of eating gas station Takis (purchased for my son – excuse) and beer, I can literally smell the Takis fuego coming out of my pores. (Fuego stands for fire).

I’m so disgusted and want a fresh start. Why this 5 pm malaise that hits me? My early morning resolve dissolves around 3 PM. How do I get past this witching hour?

I’m going to see if others have done it. Help me. Taki detox needed STAT.

Life is strange, one moment you are starting the day off in a pink stretch limo surrounded by champagne and drag queens, the next minute you are at Bass Pro Shop examining jerky and licorice waiting for the boys to get done at the shooting gallery.

How does one run the gambit like that? Also the conflict of weird parental guilt that seems to wash over me every time I make the summer exchange. I spend most of my life worrying about this guy when he’s gone and when he’s here that I’m a disappointment and a failure to him.

It had been my plan to be fit, diet clean, shit together by the time he got back. All I really accomplished was spending an impressive amount of time drinking and watching Netflix with the occasional spurts of productivity and some yin yoga sessions peppered in there for flavor. I’m a no better or worse person then when he left. I’m still his flawed mother. The mom that gets up for Drag Brunch and down for cleaning and accidentally obliterated by 7% beer in the evening, but hey the laundry is done and the dishes are washed.

Is that going to be enough? So waking up at midnight with the impression that I need to be there for him, be there for myself. Make mistakes, correct, make mistakes, correct – ad nauseam. Like a game of Magic the Gathering.

Intention: Forgive myself. Resist nothing that occurs today.

Gratitude: I’m grateful for a drama-free exchange, for my awkwardness but willingness to participate in life this weekend. For my shame and guilt to bring me back on task.

In the constant battle with self, it seems to me that I either have too much time for rumination or no time at all for self reflection. One moment I’ll be having a night where I’m circling the drain of an existential crisis. Bemoaning the fact that I wasted so much time in my youth without knowing the true value of relationships, my true value, the preciousness of time and the next minute I’m trying to string together two seconds to just get gas and groceries.

Blink and you’ll miss it.

I was feeling like I had an ocean of time to myself and now it’s running out and my child will be back soon from summer vacay. We will be off to the races, school, birthday parties, work, holidays, the whole nine yards.

Maybe I was just hoping for a little summer revelation. That this summer I would have solved the self-puzzle. That 60th book, the umpteenth crisis, and this is all when things are going relatively smoothy. The horror of it all.

I’m going to bring back the gratitude portion of these blogs because I have to remember that there is always something to be grateful for – even when you are panicking.

Gratitude:

I’m grateful for the weekend visit with my sister and the injection of youth and wonder provided by her 4-year old. Kids that age are like little house elves, full of wonder and mischief and ridiculously huge senses of self. It’s all about crayons and crackers, cartoons and milk. Blankets and stuffies. All it takes to make them happy is to splash in a pool for an hour.

Intent:

Today I will relax and give myself time. I won’t panic because everything won’t get done and that’s okay. I’ll do what is in my power to do. Relax and the rest will be okay. Be gentle and know that I am enough. I am doing enough, I am being enough.

Ahhh… I have been dabbling in a little experiment of self promotion this morning. On the prodding and gentle suggestion of my talented sister to take myself public on the Instamagram. I’m deeply afraid and unnerved by self-promotion. Like a 7-year old approaching the school auditorium stage for the first time and feeling the scarlet bloom on her cheeks. I don’t want to be seen. Also blogging. I’ve been blogging in secret on here for days. Do I want this to be seen to? No…or more like hell naw!

I mean I’ve always prided myself by my main super power of being able to stay far into the dark recess of a cave called total incognito. Isn’t that an X-Man character? Incognito. Her powers are that of total and utter anonymity. Strong enough to be able to comment on a reddit thread without her true identity ever being discovered!

It’s weird right? 

At the end of the day, I’m deeply afraid of being judged and of being finally found out as a fake or a fraud. There is a term for this, Imposter Syndrome and a million people have it.

Being judged is a part of life. We are being judged all the time, we are judging animals. I judge people in the grocery store every time I shop. It’s like my favorite thing to do. I scan their carts and make calls about their life based solely on the brand of juice and crackers they are buying. Try to deduce if they have kids or live alone. How their diet is going (or if they’ve just given up to a tide of emotional eating – another sacrificial lamb to the Gods Ben and Jerry). The carts I enjoy the most are the minimalistic ones: vodka and toothpaste, meat and body wash, beer and creamer. I do especially love a good champagne and flower cart (hey get lucky for me – winks).

So in a long distance roundabout way, what I’m trying to say is… it’s time for me to get over being judged. It’s happening anyway, whether I’m hiding or not. I’d ask you to be kind but that probably won’t happen either. So Instamamagram… judge my paintings… just my face, judge my #hashtags and maybe #stumble onto this blog – don’t be offended if I’m emotionally exposing my private parts to the public.

I may just be brave enough to share.

The past few nights I’ve had some pretty disturbing dreams. The first dream I had was of my grandmother’s house catching on fire. The kids were upstairs and we could see smoke coming from the attic. I was able to get the kids and everyone else out of the house as it went up in flames and was destroyed. However, once everyone was outside I could see flashing lights and hear gunshots in the streets and I looked to the parking lot and noticed that it was an active shootout with cops and a spray of bullets. I couldn’t find the kids anymore and was just screaming out my son’s name.

The dream I had last night was of driving through the scene of a horrifying multi-car accident. Once again there had been a fire and the cars were just burned out frames. I knew it was carnage because I could see bloodied clothes and sheets in the road – but no bodies. Someone whispered to me that they were still pulling out the bodies.

WTF brain? Both dreams had me waking up in a cold sweat because of the realism. They felt so real. I did look up house fire and gun shots and both had interesting interpretations.

To dream that a house is on fire indicates that you need to undergo some transformation. If you have recurring dreams of your family house on fire, then it suggests that you are still not ready for the change or that you are fighting against the change. Alternatively, it highlights passion and the love of those around you.

Not sure exactly how the car fire interprets, but the transformation seems right. I read at the library last night that it also could mean your current situation isn’t sustainable and that you should get out. The gunshots means you need to stay alert. Either way it’s not helping me feel relaxed.

Time for some radical self care today. Starting with getting into the shower.

Just sharing this little tidbit. I’ve been fighting off the work place devils and my father created a little spell for me to utilize. I think it’s genius and must be shared.

My life is a mandala of sorts. It’s a cycle of me getting on the wagon, falling off the wagon, wash-rinse-repeat. It seems that I have been battling the same tendencies my whole life. Once I rise above it and start feeling better the little Golum I have living inside of me will creep out and toss the house and all the hard work I’ve put into it.

For instance. I’ve been doing pretty well on my new Keto-diet. Hell I’ve even been enjoying the additional vegetables, the energy, the clearer skin and of course the 5 lbs. weight drop (my pants fitting better). So of course what do I do? Burn the house down in two day? That’s what I do.

I buy two 6-packs of beer, eat a pile of my son’s Doritos and chocolate chip cookies, and sit on the couch feeling sorry for myself because I just drank beer, ate Doritos and cookies, and didn’t do my workout. This makes no sense to me. I don’t even really enjoy those foods! I’ve been ready and willing to give up drinking for good for years.

I’ve purchased books by Alan Carr (Easy Way to Quit Drinking), Annie Grace (This Naked Mind), and The 30-Day Sobriety Solution (Jack Canfield, Dave Andrews). I mean, short of actually committing to counseling and/or rehab – I’ve seriously been considering an alcohol free lifestyle. But I know I would really miss my craft beer and occasional glass of wine, so I keep trying to find a happy medium between weeknight habitual beer guzzling and abstinence.

And usually just when I’ve found my sweet spot, I take a sudden and total nose dive into Bacchus like territory. It’s never enough, one drink, one cookie, one episode of Netflix. I go all in. Until the next day when I surface like this, bloated, sad, and afraid to zip up my pants or step on that scale. I repent and will do better today but it’s hard to keep yo-yo-ing like this.

How do I stay on the path? How do I stop the cycle and continue in a good trajectory (despite the bumps and trials of life?). Maybe I should check with Jack Canfield.

But, but, but… why if it feels more like you are dying. Not unlike me I have an obsession with scary situations, death in particular. There is a street corner about a block from me which seems to be accumulating a body count. A 13 year old girl was killed making her way to 7-11 and then this week a father of 6 attempted to cross the road there as well and was hit by not one, but two cars.

Death is like bombs going off in the distance that appear to be getting closer and closer every minute and every year. Your mom likes to ominously say “This may be the last time we do [insert activity here] or see [insert person’s name here]” too frequently these days. Of course she has been saying that ever since she started getting a senior discount, but lately it’s rang a bit too true.

It’s not the death that I’m afraid of. It’s the incompleteness of my life I find so hard. It’s all the hours on the couch, drinking beer, watching old seasons of Hell’s Kitchen and Survivor that I’m finding hard to justify. Sure we all need our downtime, but will those activities highlight my eulogy. I need to pay more attention at work. I need to pay more attention to my son. I need to pay more attention in general.

Or at the end of the day I need to accept that this is me. Drive hard, soft, and just be okay with a simple existence.

I’m grateful to be alive. I’m happy to be here on this planet today.

I’ve got to stop surfing the net before I make my morning post. It’s the modern version of the 70’s housewife valium induced blackout. I forget exactly what I am doing and why I am doing it and wake up lipstick askew watching a cat video with a slightly open mouth.

Intent: Git er’ done today. Making a slight suggestion to my subconscious to drink more water and be slightly less emotional today than yesterday.

Gratitude: I’m so grateful that I have a son who is delightfully into furry costumes and blissfully unaware of what they are used for.

Oh and that amazing sunset last night. I’m alive. I’m breathing. Life – is – good.