Dear Diary,

I have mentioned that I have been taking creatine to varying degrees since July 2018. I am beginning to think (or this is my perception anyway) that it has had an increasing effect on my mind and mental functioning. Specifically, I have very low and lull periods, but the active periods are very very active.

I am led to think that this is some kind of nootropic effect.  It's nearly 5am. I've had no regard for the time. I've spent the past few hours working on a plan for the next 2 weeks. I have some events coming up and I've decided to set a plan which has varying degrees (2) of detail to it. I've also set up some templates for ritualistic behaviours that will help me not need to think about what they are exactly, as I will be working on them in a more formalised way. Those rituals are: gettting up (morning) and warming down (night time).

I work and work and work and work with this creatine in my brain, until the brain fog comes back, until I become normal again.

That wasn't really what I wanted to write about.

Let's start over

Dear Diary,

It's nearly 5am, and I'm wrapping up to go to bed.

I'm going through my 'on this day' notifications for this week (week 34), and there are events of interesting resonances.

Last year (2017) I wrote to myself that it was on a day this week that I was offered the contract for the permanent staff position. I took it. There was a salary rise, I was very happy about it. The person who was involved with my contract was someone who once sent me what I assume is an automated email telling me that my (casual) contract was due to end as a mandatory condition of working casual shifts. I find it interesting that as I get older, I see the same people professionally and personally, but occupying different roles. I too occupy a different space compared to 5 years ago or even 1 year ago. Perhaps even compared to 3 months ago I'm doing much more hands on stuff at work.

The HR person, (lets call her Alva), first informed me about my casual contract ending. Then it came to me being inducted as a full time permanent staffer.

Other notable anniversaries of this week:

• 2016: One of my friends has a barbeque at his new recently bought flat. He's now a home owner, one of our other friends in the party acts like a dick .. we begin to notice his alcohol problems and it divides the group 
• 2009: I move out of the flat and get back home. The mess of what was the immediate aftermath of my masters, and the decisions i made through eating disorder-me are now settling in, I'm not working to move forward not backward.
• 2010: I saw the expendables movie. On that night, a friend of ours was flirting with a girl. They had a one night stand. They have been married for a year now (2018). Such a beautiful happenstance. Sylvester Stallone really does bring people together
• 2014: On my anniversaries, I write that I was paid 'over £1000' for work during a whole month. It has been ages since I've worked enough to bank £1k at that point. I immediately put in £330 to pay off an overdraft. 

So much resonance with so many of these events. I'm so happy for my friend who got married; so happy for my friend who bought the flat and so happy that I'm earning more now; that I'm a staffer at The Sentinel and the darkness and poison of what happened during grad school is...not behind me, but...I'm working on it. I'm making a new me. 

Dear Diary,

At the Sentinel, I've taken on responsibilities to manage the duties of who does what for a team of production journalists.

I've become the planning master.

I've been taking this pre-workout stuff and its been affecting my mind. It reminds me a lot of mia. WHen I purged I felt this kind of sensation of completeness and satisfaction in my soul, like some kind of spiritual sense of Catholic Absolution.

The Preworkout jacks up my mind and makes me think things and feel things. It also gives me a higher level of cognitive functionality which makes me plan things.

One thing I'm working on is not just planning ahead of time, but estimating on the basis of my previous records, when I am more likely to experience stupour (and therefore cannot stick to an intensive plan). In short, I must plan to deal with the cycles of my mood and low energy.

I'm working on this. I say this as my brain slowly fogs. It's okay if my brain is fogging now. It's 2am on a saturday morning.

I'm planning to ...(feeling foggy)...do some intensive gym in the morning.

Other things coming up:

• Weekend warrior sunday workout
• Bank HOliday Monday - going to an important talk; also [important] my Cousin from Canada is in the UK for a very short time.
• Wednesday: Union meeting on pay rise proposal // Also - I'M GOING TO SEE THE WELL TEMPERED CLAVIER PLAYED IN FULL (book 2)
• After next week - My boss comes back from extended leave, we must talk about the forward plan.
• Sunday 2 - Dental appointment
• Wednesday 5 -- I'm off the waiting list and I'm properly on a PTSD therapy course

You know, when I write it all down, I realise how much I have to do and how fast paced my life is from a certain perspective. 

But I must just take it one step at a time. Even if I take a few steps and then lay in bed until 1PM for on occaision.

I should either keep planning or go to bed. 

Dear Diary,

This monday just ending was an example of a perfect achievement day. Or at least how I perceive a fully productive and active day.

I woke up not feeling exhausted, I got to work sort of on time and I was on top of my workload that I even did a gym session during lunch, had a bit of a walk and then had some sandwiches for Lunch.

I left work early, having gotten ahead of my original plan for data entry. I had the next 5 days planned of what I specifically wanted to do. I managed to get loads done so I got ahead of what was planned. I then got home early. I finished work 90 minutes earlier than my official end but I'm 2-3 days ahead.

As I got home I sat on my desk, I just worked and worked and worked on things. I caught up on magazine reading, I worked on my tasks, I set a list of what I wanted to do tonight in an ideal setting. I got it all done.; I had a bit of a wobble around 2100 because a neighbour's house alarm went off and that made me anxious.

I saw a whole season of Peep Show during all my passive reading and catching up. Actually I didn't do everything I planned. I wanted to catch up on some emails and do my weekly review data for week 33.

My energy levels have been consistent today, my energy level and mental acuity has been good. Today has been so good that it makes me worry: when is my 'down' day going to happen?

I don't keep this active every day. I know that there's a down day, I know my mind and I know my body too well. It's nice to have a day where I'm excellent and efficient and super receptive to learning...but then there's the balance. The stupour days.

I should leave the audiobook on to sleep to (Gene Wilder's autobiography) with my hipster music playlist on spotify, passively playing as I slumber. I feel my body slowly creaking and slowly fading to sleep and fatigue. Before I sleep I really must do my teeth. After my recent dentist's appointment, I really need to do better with my dental routine.

I know on other blogs, people talk about feelings, big ideas, philosophical sorts of things. I have a masters in philosophy and all that deep shit is a busman's holiday. I spent yesterday reading about hashing techniques and my whole working life is an abstract approach to the stack overflow problem.

Now off to bed. A good day. I might even pray to be thankful for my day.

that time I changed my laces and it took so fucking long

Dear Diary,

I'm always talking about the aspiration of swallowing an egg. The reality of it is swallowing an egg is painful.

Of course, I am referring to an expression that I heard of swallowing an egg, which means to do something especially difficult that you want to put off.

One Egg I swallowed over the past couple of days was to change the laces on my brogues. I have a really nice durable pair of Loake brogues. I think they may even outlive me. The thing is that the original waxed laces lost their aglets and were in desperate need of replacement. I was putting off this task because I didn't have the first clue.

So what I did initially was go on amazon. I looked up 'Loake laces'. I bought one pair of 125cm length. When it came in I felt so proud of myself and this was truly an attempt at swallowing an egg. Then, I realised it was too short. Then I looked again on amazon, but not before putting things off.

[in my mind right now as I type this physically. I'm reminded of a flashback. The year is probably something like 2011-2013, I am in the line up for an administrative position at an events venue linked to Shambly Arena. The staff are comparably similar and there is distinct overlap as it's the same company. I don't get the job but I still have that distinct memory of the old fashioned building and being in their waiting room. I don't know why I'm thinking about that as I'm writing about how I changed my laces]

The failure of getting laces that were unsuitable for my shoes put me off. It put me off to the degree that I avoided trying to solve the problem. I then considered, what about shorter laces? I then decided to get some 100cm laces. Lo and behold: it's too long, but only just. I realised 'only just' too long is not acceptable. I don't want to look like some early 2000s clown where all my shit is hanging and dragging on the floor.

Again, I put it off. I put it off some more and then I just decided. Fuck it, lets go for the 75cm laces. I thought by a process of elimination it had to be the right ones. I received the laces but then I did a wardrobe and desk reshuffle/clearout. This meant that I didn't know where my new laces were, that made me put things off even more. Eventually at 2am on a saturday/friday night, I did it. I just went downstairs after finding the laces (under a pile of highlighters and other junk), I pulled the old laces off and entered the new ones. They were short, but exactly the same shortness of my old laces, so basically a successful exchange.

I finally swallowed that egg.

My dad never solves problems, he just leaves things to linger and when they become problems he just puts a carpet over it (figuratively and in the case of the rising floor boards, literally). I hate how he does that, what I hate most is how I too do not resolve my problems directly but let them linger, avoid them.

It says something deep about me if I were not to address my problems and tackle them. It is a sign of weakness. It is worst of all, a very real part of me that I'm trying to address. That and avoiding my family and friends... but that's the topic of another post.

Chris Rock's stand up routines generally resonate in my mind. He has so many phrases which just pop up in my head: ain't no happiness nowhere, 'Boy that Spielberg's something else' and so on.

Rock had a routine where he stated: if you're white, the sky's the limit/if you are black, the limit is the sky.

That's been in my head right now because I keep these lists. I keep loads of lists nowadays. I write down so many lists I have lists of lists and lists that are epty, lists that are too long which need to be broken down into lists and lists that are only relevant at a specific time.

One list I maintain is a sense of aspiration. Back in the day I used to write these things I called 'intention envelopes'. Around the time that Woolworths closed down in 2009, I went to buy all of their old stock and really really rinsed the place out. (Perhaps I'll talk about that later in more detail). I somehow had a bunch of stationery and I began a mentality of stockpiling things, which is becoming quite unhealthy right now (perhaps I'll talk about that later in more detail). 

(I'm meandering too fucking much for this story.)

Around that time I wrote some things onto some excess envelopes that I just had too many of. These were the Aspiration envelopes. I wrote down things that I wanted to buy, things that I wanted to have. I didn't consider myself materialistic but I then found that as I thought more about the things that I wanted to have, I felt a sense of self-expression through it. By owning something of a certain brand or something with certain features, I am expressing myself and who I am.

The list then became a bit more philosophical (as in psychologically probing) and metaphysical (as in  ontological or 'pertaining to states of affairs rather than things'). I would write things on the list like: get a car, get a torch, get a bass guitar, learn to play the bass guitar, bet a nice metal (as in the music) amp for the bass guitar, get a PhD, be a PhD, have a PhD, have a career, have a house, have an income, start earning....

You can tell that the exploration of the little things we want, when probed deeper and deeper lead to that kinds of aspirations of what one might want of themselves, of society and of the world. 

[cut to 2018] 

Some of the things on my aspirational list I am trying to create a realistic plan to achieve.

The problem is: I need to make £24.7k in savings at least to achieve it. Is that something I can do? 

(not counting the PhD, then that's about 33k (at least for the first year, so maybe 42k overall).

I'm really glad that I'm a salaryman now. I work at a job I never imagined I'd have. I also never imagined I'd enjoy it. I have a job title that doesn't fit my salary (I earn way more...I may be earning more than others who have that job title [who are mostly female, but that's the perhaps a subject of another post]), but I am possibly due for at least one pay rise. 

I want grown up things. I want a Piano, I want a new clarinet, I want to save for a decent car, I want to save for a custom suit, I want to save for a super fancy mac jacket, I need to save for a mortgage (working on it), I want that PhD, I want and I want and I want...

But demand requires supply. Basically I need moolah. I'm making moolah, but the issue is a combination of things, like a good ejaculation, it needs time and volume. I might get all those things done but in a long time, and I need to start saving at a certain volume to fit a time scale. 

Perhaps it all goes down to one thing: money. I work like a fucking dog, but I need to also think about income. Think about other revenue streams. But in order to do that, I really need to have my head in the game. I really need to be on the ball every waking moment to achieve all of those things in my life. 

I'm ignoring relationships as well, that's also important in this very complicated decision matrix. I also need to add some 'plasticity schema' tasks as well to keep my mind occupied. Oh, what about me wanting to get back into the piano and seriously studying and performing again. Fuck. I'm trying to be so many things and so many people, and then I realise I'm too fucking overweight because I overate a few too many days in a fucking row.

Perhaps things aren't so different to 2008.

Back then, I had lots of problems. I had a masters degree to do, I had relationship problems (or so I felt at the time), I had friendship problems, I had my poor health. I also had that unbearable void of having an unknown future. And then the financial crash happened.

This week at the men's group I said during the beginning remarks: on that day I dealt with a 7/10 crisis. I didn't think it was that bad because I've dealt with 10/10 crises on a frequency that gives me a tolerance for dealing with difficult shit. As soon as I said it, I thought I was right about that, but then a couple of hours later, I felt little tingling things in my body telling me that I am not physically okay with being so busy lately. 

When I write my aspirational limit, I think of how high I can soar. When I think of the realistic path to the sun, I am reminded that I need something better than wax wings. 

 

Remembering 2008

So, like the fuckboy that I am, I am often rolling a tape in my mind of 'what happened 10 years ago'.

In my mind I'm thinking about August-October 2008. Two things have simulated this reminiscing.

On Netflix I've started to binge watch the Big Bang Theory. You know, that god-awful sitcom about the PhDs. One thing I've noticed about it is how deeply politically incorrect the characters are. They wouldn't make a show like that today. Perhaps its a testimony to how long a show is, that the characters who are supposed to be our protagonists, are beginning to look like antagonists by the contemporary 2018 standards of the day. Wolowitz looks like some alt-right future shooter and Raj looks like some future right wing incel. But maybe the point of the show is that they develop as characters and grow from being facile individuals.

Back in 2008 after my dissertation. I lived in a flat in Bristol. It wasn't my best time, in fact, it was a time of some significance in relation to the men's group I'm in right now (more on that another time). I would wake up, didn't have a job. Didn't feel motivated to apply for a job. I was waiting on that PhD application, waiting, waiting, waiting.

I'd wait until December 14 for the rejection. The biggest drop I ever felt. But that's not the part of the story I want to focus on. Before that drop I had a routine.

I'd wake up, or refuse to get up, come around 2pm or so, not really do much. I'd then eventually get out of bed and go to the nearby sainsburys in Clifton Down. I'd buy the same kinds of things: Ramen, tinned fish, cheese ball crisps/snacks or some Haagen Daaz. I was at the point after I began to stop purging or not quite stopped, where I was sexy and thing but beginning to pile the weight back on with my shitty eating.

I felt lost during those walks. I'd walk to clifton down using many different routes. I'd walk back, using even more and longer routes. When I got home I started to watch The Big Bang Theory. I'd usually do 1-2 episodes a day. In the darkness of my life and the limbo of my nothingness. (ed: hmmm, Limbo, I've not used that word in a while....). I would plant myself down in the box room. I'd put on some Big Bang Theory and gorge on the disgusting cheese balls or Haagen Daaz. In that moment I felt a drug like bliss. My situation disgusting and dire, no intellectual pleasure at all. What I felt was a physical rush, a sense of self-soothing that was unhealthy with a selfhood and concept of self where I had no notion of healthy or unhealthy.

In my group we talk about 'old me' and 'new me'. I guess that's really the old me, the old me that I need to move away from and move towards something different.


The other thing that reminded me of 2008 and that specific era of my life is that on my TV forum where I find about TV shows, there's an historical documentary series about...the 2000s. I am so confounded by this. How is there a TV series about the 2000s. How is there a documentary series about the 2000s. We are nearing the end of the 2010s and we really are still in the 2000s in my opinion. There are so many things about the 2000s that the present day are basically a response to: Obama's era led to the Trump reactionary era aka present day. The financial crisis led to a decline in faith in the economic and political order, aka Brexit, Trump, populism, and social divisions. Plus we are still obsessed with electronics that are increasingly technically advanced: Ipods begat Iphones, Iphones begat Ipads, Ipads begat newer Iphones....we still are in the 2000s in my view.

In another respect, we are still definitely not in the 2000s. Back in 2008 I was an ex grad student. Back in 2008 I was lost in life.

Now in 2018 I'm developing the means to pull myself out of the darkness. It is not a bright time for me, but it is the age of enlightenment.

I get my positives where I can.

Dear Diary,

The thing that depresses me a little bit is that I'm not a writer or an editor. I work in an internationally recognised publishing organisation with some world famous names. Fuck, I've even smoked cigars with some of them and drank whiskeys with them, talked Adorno with cultural writers. But I'm not their peer. I'm their majordomo.

There's a part of my soul that wanted to soar in life. The wings were clipped before I could even jump. The opportunities I felt weren't there, or when I applied to things I was overlooked.

My energy levels are all over the place lately. I'm normally not a morning person. When I get up and go to work, I'm in a mad rush. Yesterday at work I went in a mad mad rush and then I found myself at 5:57pm by the time I reached the finish line. I did all my rushing and I did a full day's work.

Back in the day I'd do a mad rush and I'd be done by 2pm with enough time for netflix and fucking around. Two caveats do come into play: I'm doing a major task that is due at the end of the month and I'm already done by 14 August. So, that is kind of like 2pm (in the scale of the month). The other thing is: whether I like it or not, whether I'm not an editor or not. I've got some serious responsibilities at work and I handle them with sensitivity, professionalism and complete things with excellence.

I have a lot of recurring dreams lately. I'm constantly worried about my parents health. After my friend nearly died in 2016 (I think I mentioned that, right?), my worries have gotten into overdrive. Without my parents, my life is...extremely isolated. I'm not in the best way with my other family and friends. I'm not ready to reach out to others yet.

I wanted to talk about two specific things. But I'll make another blog post...

Reminiscing past Augusts

So I'm going through my google calendar right now to log all the shit I've done lately. I've had a busy few days. Really hectic since Tuesday in fact.

On my 'on this day' notifications I've observed a few things:

• 2010: Operation to remove my UR8 (dental surgery)
• The resonance of this is that I've been the the dentist this week, and I need some serious dental work before I have a filling put in. My teeth are not in a good way, and much of this is not looking after it and avoiding the dentist.
• 2013: Went to see the film 'The Wolverine' with my mate, The Microbiologist. He was writing up his PhD at the time
• Resonance: I saw The Microbiologist this week. One of my very few (perhaps the only) friend I still contact from University. After his PhD, he worked in New York (he doesn't like talking about what happened) and now he's in the north of England working as a postdoc. The Microbiologist says that he's not got much rope left in university research and a university career.
• 2016: Dave from management (at work) offered me a 1 year fixed term contract at The Sentinel
• Resonance: Two years on from that and I'm almost a year on from my staff contract; in addition I earn several thousand more than I did on the FTC. You know, looking at these anniversaries really hits home that my pay rise was quite significant (still not enough to buy a house just yet though).
• 2018: I've set up a schemata for a foldering system I have...the last one I did was in 2007-2009. I've been putting it off.

dear diary,

after The Incident. I thought I had PTSD from then.

But looking at my 'on this day' records for 2013 show that the night terrors (a sign of the PTSD) may have preceded The Incident. So, THe Incident may have not been the prima causa towards the PTSD.

This blog is a big outdated.

The medium of blogging is so 2000s. People moved on the tumblr; then they moved on to twitter and instagram from there; and now nobody says anything of value. It is as if the value of letters has significantly diminished to the acts of an upper class few....perhaps things haven't really changed in that respect (that's a joke referencing early modern literary practi-ah fuck it)


In the days when I blogged more, I talked about people. The Maths PhD guy who was perhaps a closest thing to a best friend; the other maths PhD guy who I wanted to be my best mate, but we fell out a bit and he had his own issues; the Maths PhD guy who really caused me upset when he became the president of the atheist society at uni, and not me.

Sometimes I think these things...really don't matter to me anymore. I hardly ruminate that much, and when I do, I feel like I want to really ruminate the fuck out of it, get all the thoughts and feelings out like wringing a sponge, and not think about it again.

I guess this is what I'm doing by the medium of blogging??

Let's give these people names: PhD one is Barnabus; PhD two is Wilkins; PhD three is Moriarty.

Barnabus is on my facebook feed. He married the girl I used to walk home with after atheist society and we had some good chats. Natalie and Barnabus are such a sickly sweet couple, they are both ugly as fuck, and they have the most beautiful progeny as a result of their own genetic failures. Barnabus does all these super liberal things like sharing posts from the newspaper that I work in. And sharing posts about the elderflower fucking cordial that he grows. Natalie talks about how she has various health conditions and (something generically feminist or whatever) about her approach to life. And anti-trump stuff. That's basic though.

God. I haven't even mentioned how Donald Trump is president in this blog. Man, I'm so self-obsessed.

Wilkins. I haven't heard much from him. Maybe I should look him up on facebook? Last I heard, he was in canada as a research associate working on some issues on low temperature energy transfers specifically in relation to the operating problems around quantum computing. Canada are really big into quantum computing research, and they are also big into getting British people emigrating there. Like two of my mates.

Moriarty - I don't really know what he's doing. I saw him on Linkedin one day. He's working in Germany as a financial something or other. He dropped out of his PhD and isn't working on Quantum Computing anymore.

Back when I knew Natalie and Barnabus (not a couple), Natalie was going out with this scrawny 18 years pissant guy. Lets call him Leclerk. Leclerk, it so turned out after my boring curiosity - was a PhD candidate under the same supervisor as Barnabus, and on a very very similar topic to Barnabus. I believe that Leclerk is in Europe working on his computational set theory something or other, and Barnabus is no longer in academia. It's really weird...the story was once that Barnabus and I were the big dogs of the social circle. Now I'm an admin monkey at a newspaper (also cartoon editor) and Barnabus is a...who knows what the fuck he does but it involves elderflower and family life in Northernshire or whatever. And it turns out that the Lowly Leclerk is a big shot PhD still in academia.

I won't lie. Writing this brings a tear to my eye. Reminiscing. Remembering the old me.

I'm in a program right now, and there's a lot of conceptualising of 'old me' vs 'new me'. I very much want to move to a 'new me' in life and I believe that i am doing so. But the old me is my past. My past is a part of me and always will be, but its not my future.

I cry because I mourn a past. I mourn a life I could have had. I mourn a life I wanted to have. I mourn a life that I still want to have. I mourn a sense of jealousy. I mourn a sense of anger towards myself. These are the old me thoughts.

These are why I write the positives.

I write lots of lists. I live by lists these days. I have a routine these days. On sundays I prep for the gym, go to the gym, do the gym for 2 hours, take a nutrition pause; go to 2 gym classes (group classes) then I go home. I burn between 2-3k kcals. I don't know why I do it. I don't know why I do many things. I feel like it is some kind of inner conatus. The inner drive that is inside me of a forgotten being too scared to come out yet, or not ready to come out yet.

Lately I've started to take something called pre-workout. It's a fancy super-drug. Creatine, caffiene and loads of other shit (l-leucine and beta alanine are the ones I know about) and it jacks up my brain. I feel the flood of testosterone rage flow through and I also feel on the verge of mortality. Usually when I get home from my gym routine, I am 5 hours into a workout, I am shattered, seriously exhausted as I get home. Today was different. Today I felt fresher. I felt more energy. I feel like it was the pre-workout that helped. I also had a really good protein bar which gave me the right balance of carbohydrates and protein. The protein is to maintain my muscle mass but provide no energy or comfort to my sense of exhaustion. That's what the carbs were for. Before I was just taking Huel (I should talk about htat later) and protein gels (as of last month).

I should try to go to bed. I wonder if I will sleep. The weather has not been conducive to sleep.

Anyway.

Toodles and good night.

positives

Dear Diary,

I have a thing pinned on google keep that asks me to name three positives, which I've probably mentioned before.

So here they are:

• I did so much housework this week, so much that I have followup for future housework tasks. I even bought leather wipes
• This saturday I got up out of bed properly at 10am, I did about 3 hours straight housework and the routinised nature of the task helped keep me on the level
• At the gym earlier today, I did 225kg calf presses. That's a quarter of a tonne, right? 

(some more)

• I feel like I look like a different person in the mirror. I'm not sure if I have physically changed, but I see someone different. Perhaps having a beard helps
• I am seriously thinking about the future. I have so many savings funds going on right now, not just the mortgage one but for other big purchases. I am thinking about big purchases but I also level it out by saving a specific amount before buying it and doing research beforehand. God that sounds so fucking boring