3:03PM. I dropped off 6 packages at FedEx, 4 at USPS. Then I went thrift shopping. I acquired 8 items. I plan on listing them all today. Next I did 20 laps around the firepit and did 20 pushups. I also did some axe throwing. Tired 5.

I was thinking while I was driving that eBay requires that I sit on items for 7 days. I’m thinking cost basis here. I have to spend money to get items in the door, then I have to hold them for at least 7 days. Those items aren’t doing anything for me while they sit there. They simply take up space.

I don’t think I’m making my point. My point is that items sitting at home before they are listed on eBay is an item that is not working for me. It’s an asset that has 0 chance of making me money. It’s an item with a 7 day timer on it, and that timer hasn’t started yet.

I don’t have the vocabulary to describe this very well. The point is that I need to list on eBay as soon as possible, to start that 7 day timer ticking. I don’t want the money to be tied up in inventory, I want that money to manifest itself as sales income.

I’m sitting on the items I bought today. I’m not planning on listing them until later this afternoon. The reason for that is because I gotta journal and eat. Also I’m picking up groceries from Fred Meyer between 4 and 5 PM. After I get groceries and put them away, I’ll list on eBay.

This brings up the thought I had yesterday. I need a lightbox. If I am to make good sales, I need good pictures. If I am to have good pictures, I must take pictures in good lighting. If I am to take pictures in good lighting, I need to take pictures outside, or I need a lightbox.

I was thinking about making a frame and lining it with paper or fabric, but today I’m thinking of an even faster way– A large cardboard box. I happen to have such a box which I acquired during my cardboard haul yesterday.

Note to self… Don’t take wet or dirty cardboard. I deserve an odor free home, and wet dirty cardboard does not help me attain that goal. Luckily the smell seems to have dissipated, but in the future it can be avoided altogether if I just take a little extra time and be choosy with my cardboard.

Speaking of cardboard, an extended grabber would be nice. Then I could harvest from the U-City mall cardboard container which is perfectly placed for private dumpster diving.

Dumpster grabbing. I don’t have any plans to actually jump into dumpsters. I probably could have done that with the aforementioned cardboard container which would nullify the need for a grabber.

There’s something wrong with my nose. It hurts. It itches. I can’t smell things well. Perhaps I have allergies. Perhaps my apartment is filthy. My apartment is definitely filty, but perhaps I have allergies. Perhaps I have a nose infection. Perhaps it’s just the dry winter. One sec, I’ma shove vaseline up my nose.

The inside of my nose is pretty tender. I think it’s because I’ve been rubbing it so much lately. I’m guessing it’s a combination of all the things. Dust in the air, dry winter air, rubbing, etc. I gotta take it easy on the rubbing.

The Vaseline made it 5% better.

Damn, now my teeth hurt. I wonder if it’s actually a tooth infection or some shit, and the pain is manifesting in my nose. I need to visit the dentist asap. It’s been too long. I probably have 7 cavities. Teeth problems affect the whole body. I experience tooth pain a lot and I think I’ve just turned the pain receptors off in my brain. I’m not doing myself any favors by avoiding the dentist!

I can’t afford it though. Maybe I should go into debt for my teeth. No, that’s not okay. I would likely have to spend thousands to get my teeth in good order. Well then I should just find a dentist who accepts medicaid.

I’m tired 7. I think I feel more pain when I get sleepy. I think I’ll nap once I pick up groceries.

Ow. Major tooth pain. Perhaps it will be better once I finish eating and have a chance to brush my teeth.

Someone found my Hatsune Miku V4X installation guide useful! They e-mailed me and asked for some additional help. I gave them my Discord tag and we chatted a bit on there. They didn’t end up needing anything extra, as their solution ended up being a simple locating their license card.

Very cool! I think they were the first person to get a hold of me and comment on that post. I’m happy 5 to know that someone found it useful!

I asked them how they found out about me. Apparently they found my blog post via google. I think it’s safe to say that I don’t need this WordPress plugin called Meta Tag Manager anymore. I think it might have been useful at one point in time, but now it seems that WordPress has good enough SEO just from entering tags in the Document’s tag field.

Beleted! I like to keep my blog lean.

Lunch complete! It’s 3:54 PM now. I’ll wash dishes and brush teeth next.

One thing I want to write before I forget. Codependent No More suggests creating goals for everything. Even things that seem too hard. Even if the reader can’t come up with goals, they are encouraged to make a goal to find some goals.

I think this is terrific advice and it’s something I’ve been doing habitually. It has got me in a different frame of mind to where I prioritize actions which will put me closer to that goal.

One goal I have is to… I forgot. I had a goal in mind but I forgot.

Oh, the dentist! I have a goal to visit the dentist. I don’t care if it’s medicaid dentist, or me forking out extra cash to go to my regular dentist, but I need to make it happen regardless. My health is of the utmost importance!

I remember reading (or was it listening to?) Gennady Stolyarov on his opinion that life is the highest form of value. Life is the highest form of value because it is a prerequisite for all other forms of value. Truly an insightful fact.

I was preparing to make a left hand turn into the Fred Meyer parking lot, when an oncoming speeding vehicle approached. I was a little frustrated 1 about it because they were rolling up on a red light.

Damn, some people are good at rat racing!

They seemed to be in a hurry for no good reason. They had to slow down and probably stop in just a few seconds!

This made me wonder. Am I a good rat racer? Today felt like a rat race, that’s for sure. Am I, in my pursuit of doing things I love in exchange for money becoming a better rat racer in the process?

I think perhaps I am becoming a rat racer. In some ways, I don’t like it. In other ways, I’m thrilled. I don’t like it because I pride myself in being the weird one. I’ve been, “special” for years because I have mooched off my parents for so long. I stopped being, “weird” years ago, when I stopped enjoying life..

Now I’m starting to enjoy life. I’m enjoying it because I’m living intentionally. I’m living to be the best version of me that I can be. I’m living free.

I have a lot more work to do. It’s not going to be easy and the struggle to reduce debt and earn more than I spend is going to be a real challenge.

I’m just determined to making baby steps every single day. I’m determined to journal and sort out my thoughts. I’m determined to let my feelings happen, let them flow through me. I’m determined to deal with them. I’m determined to learn how to be a better person through therapy. How to deal with my feelings. How to regulate them without stifling them.

I would like to learn how to be a better seamster, a better cook, and a better communicator. I would like to learn how to communicate peacefully. I would like to learn shame resilience.

I’m still on the fence about Co-Dependents Anonymous. I don’t like their use of god. I think the use of god removes responsibility. Or at least lessens it. I know people use god loosely. People in AA are encouraged to replace, “god” with whatever higher power they deem fit.

If I go to CoDA, I’d be inclined to replace, “god” with, “Miku.”

I know my sister who went through AA substituted god with something like nature. I could do that. But for real, AA and CoDA have pretty much the same 12 step process. I don’t like that.

I’ll talk to my therapist about it. I don’t want to call CoDA people to find out when/where an appointment is. I would rather e-mail them, but that would eliminate my anonymity. Perhaps I could use an alias. I have that capability for sure, given the power that Fastmail provides me. They even give me a bunch of domains to choose from. Hella cool and super easy to make a new identity!

I just made a new alias. I’m not going to tell you what it is! But it has it’s own signature.

Sent from my iPhone from Tapatalk

How generic!

And the name isn’t Chris Grimmett, of course! Now if I go to CoDA, I can be anonymous as the program intends!

Now I just gotta figure out how to deal with the Christian vibe, and maybe I can show up. I gotta find a meeting, of course.

User-Agent: Cyrus-JMAP/3.1.7-754-g09d1619-fmstable-20200113v1
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-PersonalityId: 102805712
Message-Id: <90e6a667-af26-4172-8937-4c76d73f5cd0@www.fastmail.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 17:35:30 -0800
From: "Steven Patt" <motocross42@letterboxes.org>
To: east@codawa.org
Subject: Spokane Valley meetings?
Content-Type: text/plain

Hi are there any CoDA meetings in Spokane Valley?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Raw e-mails are fun to look at sometimes. I’m now Steven Patt! I will surely shed this identity in some time, but for now, I like the feeling of being just another anon. It brings me comfort from an otherwise uncomfortable 7 experience.

I think I will begin to annotate my feeling ratings differently from now on. Instead of, “uncomfortable 7,” I will now write feeling ratings as functions. “uncomfortable(7).” I think that will make reading my ratings of feelings slightly less confusing.

Let’s talk about Joe Rogan for a second. Joe Rogan Experience is pretty fantastic. I listened to it yesterday while I spent some 4 hours packaging eBay shipments. I’m planning on doing similarly today as I list the items I got from the thrift store today.

I recall a story a semi-retired co-worker told me a few years ago. It was a story of his son. His son was growing up and couldn’t figure out what he wanted to do with his life. His dad asked him, “what do you like doing?”

The son thought about it for a moment and replied, “I like to eat.”

The son then became a chef, and apparently does pretty well for himself.

I like to watch YouTube and make web apps. Therefore, I should become a web developer! But the thing is, i can’t watch youtube and focus on code. Therefor, I should become an eBayer! Then I can listen to all the JoeRoganExperience I want while I list and ship items.

I don’t want just one thing though. I like doing so many things that I want to do lots of little things which as a sum bring in enough money to live off of. For now, eBay seems to check the most boxes. I de-clutter by selling all my junk, I can chill out and watch YouTube, and I can make money. I also get to drive which is usually an enjoyable experience. Unfortunately my vehicle isn’t in the best shape, but if I can keep up a positive revenue stream, I can afford to make a down payment on a Tesla Model 3!

Getting a new car car solve one problem, but it might create some more. I would have to come up with a way to charge the car. Maybe that involves a power meter and reimbursing my parents. Maybe it involves solely supercharging. I also wouldn’t have a place to live if I were to leave my parent’s place. It also creates more debt, as I would have to make costly car payments.

Cincinnati Picker makes up to $9500 a month by selling on eBay. I can’t even imagine that much money! I have had some years where that’s more than 50% of my yearly income!

This is inspiring news, to say the least. I’m glad he exposed that statistic because it gives me even more hope that I can live my dreams. I just have to work hard, thrift hard, and scale up the hustle!

I’ll finish today’s post with some words of gratitude.

I’m grateful for my friend Matt who texted me last night and invited me to come play games. I miss him! And he misses me as well. I think Matt is my best friend at this point. He wants to catch up and playing Squad is usually a great way to do that. We can play casually and just chat, but there’s always an opportunity to step up our game if we so desire.

I’m grateful for Cincinnati Picker. He is gracious enough to share his workflows, his tips and tricks, and his income! This inspires me to follow my own dreams and hustle like he does!

I’m grateful for the Fred Meyer staff member who loaded up my Suburban with the groceries I ordered online. I sensed a little unease in her voice as she spoke to me. I’m a scary looking guy and I’m weird, I get it a lot. Anyway, she did her best to be courteous. She asked me how my day was going and I mentioned a good thrift haul earlier.

That’s the thing… I don’t have to sit in awkward silence anymore! I can have an awkward conversation! It’s a shared experience either way, so why not have a conversation which could turn out to be a nice moment in the day?

That’s it for now, thanks for watching, bye.