Arrived at Spokane Buddhist Temple 3 minutes early, but had to pee so bad that I couldn’t go in. They have a toilet I’m sure, but I don’t know where it is. I’m pretty sure it’s in the basement.
Fuck.
All this way and I’m not prepared.
I was excited to attend but I’m not prepared. No fucking way I’m going in late. Nobody was late last week. I’m not going to be late and interrupt.
Fuck. I gotta wait a full 7 days until I can go to Sangha service again. I’m going to leave home early next time. I’m going to arrive early, find the bathrooms, and make a friend. It’ll be easier to attend when I have a friend. I can ask them about Buddhist things and learn and it’ll just be better.
I will arrive 15 minutes early next week. At least. I see people in there socializing before service begins. Then I’ll have a chance to pee and get my bearings.
Today I left home at 10:00AM. That’s way too late of a departure. Next week, I’ll arrive at the Buddhist template at 10:15 which means I need to have at 9:45.
OK. I got a plan for next time. I’m sad I was late today and next week I will try harder. It’s a shame that I didn’t make it, especially knowing that I was up at 6:20 AM.
It all comes down to poor planning. This is why I’m always late, or just barely on time. I don’t plan well.
I don’t plan on arriving early, I plan on arriving just. in. time.
Oh hey, I don’t even have to pee that bad. I think it was just nerves. I’m sitting in my truck outside the Buddhist temple. Oh fuck me. I’m such a coward. I can’t even go thrift shopping right now. The stores open at 12PM today. It’s only 10:45 and I guess I’ll just go home and journal. Not anything else I can think to do.
Mahjong is at 3PM. I’m probably not going to that. Dammit, this is so frustrating. When will I learn that being on time is a result of good planning?
When I am late, it is because I did not plan. I can’t seem to learn from this mistake I make so often.
So often! It is habit for me to be late. Fuuuuuck.
OK I have to move forward now. I’m going to see if there are any thrift stores open this early. Then I’m going home and doing laundry, journalling and listing P-Memories cards on eBay. Moving forward!
I bought around 10 dollars worth of thrift store stuff. I was not in a good mood so I don’t think I made very good acquisitions. I think because I was feeling sad, I made sad purchases which were meant to make me feel better, not meant to turn a profit. I bought a VHS rewinder for $2 which apparently is worth $15. If I can get $15 out of it, and a few dollars from some Avery labels, it’ll be a worthwhile haul.
I went walking. I had done 10 laps before attempting to go to Sangha, so I finished with another 10 just now. I gotta do laundry soon. And list shit on eBay. I feel like taking a nap but I should resist the urge to sleep. If I stay up all day, there’s a good chance that I can get my sleep schedule back on track.
If I’m really crashing, I’ll let myself take a nap. I’m not about to compromise my immune system because I want to get my sleep back on track. I’ll take a nap, but set an alarm so I don’t sleep too long.
Maybe like 1.5 hours, that would be a good amount.
I keep thinking of what is the root cause of me being late so often? I think it is because I don’t deal with my feelings. If I dealt with my feelings, I might sleep better because I wouldn’t keep myself awake all night with things distracting me from feeling.
If I had a solid sleep schedule, my bowel movements would be regular. Sometimes I have the urge to poop before I go to appointments, and the 10-15 minutes it takes to poop is enough to cause me to be late. This happened this morning.
I think I get nervous and my body wants to purge it’s contents to be ready to fight or flight. Poop and pee. I can’t easily change this, but it would help if I give myself time in my plan to take care of these things.
So next Sunday, I want to leave the house at 9:45. As in, I want to be driving away at 9:45, not running out of my front door at 9:45.
That means I need to give myself 5 minutes to get to the car. Maybe an extra 5 minutes if there is snow, so I can clear it off and defrost. Actually, I’ll give myself that extra time regardless, since my windows have been consistently foggy every day.
At the truck at 9:40. Out the front door at 9:35. Putting on shoes and gathering necessary items at 9:30. Getting dressed at 9:25. Brushing teeth at 9:20. Shaving at 9:15. Showering at 9:05. Pooping at 8:50. Exercising at 7:50. Waking up and journalling at 7.
I clearly see my mistake today. Even though I was up at 6:20 AM, I did not start preparing for the day until 8AM. I arrived at Grant Park at 10:27AM which is 12 minutes later than I wanted to arrive. If I had pepared for the day 12 minutes earlier at 7:48, I could have been on time just by sheer luck.
I won’t leave this task of being on time to luck! Next week, I can be very intentional with my schedule, and ensure an early arrival, with plenty of time to find the restrooms and socialize!
I’m thinking of finding a friend via a paid friend website. I just realized what I said. Paid friend. That sounds like a terrible service to use.
Well I thought of it because I could use a friend to go with me to Sangha service. Someone to help me break the ice with other people there. But no, I don’t think that’s a healthy relationship. And healthy relationships are a big goal of mine.
WRAR! I wanna be done writing. I’m only at 1000 words though. I wanna go to sleep, not write! Then I want to wake up and eat a big meal and smile. I just realized how sparingly I smile anymore. I force smiles sometimes. They are very awkward and not genuine. I smiled at Mahjong last night, and I’d say 80% of those smiles were genuine. That was a nice Mahjong meetup, and I hope to do another next weekend.
I wanna list shit on eBay or sleep. But I don’t want to write. I got nothing to write about. I’m gonna take a nap.
I napped, then I woke up at around 5:30. I got a text from my mom inviting me to dinner. I went and had some yummy home made bread with bean soup. Great combo but holy shit that was a lot of sugar. It’s amazing how poorly adapted I am to sugar at this point. I only drank about a fourth of the apple juice I got from the game store yesterday because it’s just so much sugar!
I’m not complaining. I don’t like sugary things. I like salty and savory!
Speaking of salty and savory, I could eat right about now. It’s 11:05PM now. I played Rummy with A. and M. I wonder if J. gets uncomfortable around me. She left after dinner. She was talking a lot and there weren’t long enough breaks for me to jump in there. It was just her talking and it seemed like A. and M. were having the same issue, just not able to jump into the conversation. I think it’s just a timing issue. She’s more used to a very small delay between talking. My family is more used to a long delay between talking.
There’s just no breaks! I think people talking together should have equal time slots to talk. So often I end up talking with B. and there’s no time for me or anybody but B. to talk. She doesn’t leave room. She doesn’t take breaks. It’s incredibly rude for B. to do most of the talking and assume other people’s intentions, assume their thoughts… This is why she’s a frenemy now, LOL. She’s great at talking but she’s bad at communicating.
And I’m great at judgement and even worse than her at communicating!
I don’t even know what I should say or what I should do. This is why I’m thinking of taking some classes on communications. If there’s anything on meetup.com, that would be a great start. If not, maybe I could look at SCC. Online classes don’t cut it for this sort of thing. I need practice and in-person communications. I need accountability from peers.
B. hasn’t been on Steam for awhile. I wonder what he’s up to. I really enjoyed our time playing Squad together last week. Perhaps he will play tomorrow evening? I hope so. Perhaps I should invite him. Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll for sure be online because M. is likely to be online then. I really look forward to our meetings because we get along so well. M. is a great driver and I love to gun, so when we command armored units, I’m on top of the world.
Armor is one of the greatest parts of Squad. It is incredibly hard to master armor, and incredibly rewarding to strive towards that mastery.
Here’s an example of something that may not be intuitive. Armor vs. Infantry. Which one will win? The correct answer is… it depends.
Usually, the correct answer is infantry. A squad consisting of two soldiers carrying anti tank rockets is armor’s worst nightmare. Armor vs. Armor is an even playing field. In situations of well armed Armor vs. well armed Infantry, infantry has a real advantage of being able to sneak around and stealthily shoot rockets up the armor’s tailpipe.
It’s completely counterintuitive at first. People driving armor may feel invincible due to be surrounded by thick steel plates, when in reality, infantry may have a maneuverability advantage.
There are of course cases which favor the armor. Armor could be posted up on a hill a half mile away and rain shots down on a squad of infantry. That is where armor shines and the infantry tend to get fucked.
The biggest threat for armor comes in the form of urban combat, where walls, buildings, and other terrain give infantry a clear advantage in maneuverability and concealment.
It’s these cases where armor really has to stay on their feet and never hold position for very long. A good armor team should drop in, provide cover to their team or attack a target, then get the fuck out of dodge. If they hold their firing position for more than say a minute, they’re asking for trouble.
As soon as they make their appearance to the other team, they can count on the other team working to neutralize the huge threat that is armor. As soon as the other team knows about the threat of armor, their LAT and HAT units are no doubt maneuvering into position to make a counter attack.
I was talking to M. about this one time when we had a go in a russian 30mm APC on Narva. Best map by the way. We were in the thick of combat in an urban environment, holding position as I threw rounds down range at various targets. We were taken out quite rapidly by infantry was able to sneak down alleyways and get into position at our 6. Our rear is our weakest side, and a couple rockets in our butt meant we were toast.
This got me thinking about setting an actual, physical timer when we got to a position. If we can work out the average response time of a LAT or HAT kit, we can figure out the average time we can be in a hostile area before we are under an immediate threat of being blown to smithereens by sneaky anti-tank units.
I bet I could find a cheap egg timer at a thrift store. I want one with a one button operation. I press the button, and the timer starts counting down. I press the button again, and the timer restarts counting down. If the timer reaches zero, it starts chirping and I know it’s time to get the hell out of there.
I suppose one button is not enough for a good timer. Simple is what I desire, then!
I’ll have to keep an eye out.
Ok that’s enough writing for today. I’ll leave with some affirmations and words of gratitude.
82. I am capable of bringing my dreams to life.
86. While I wait for the storm to pass, I will choose to dance in the rain.
89. I light the world with my smile.
I’m grateful for my mom. She’s really kind and thoughtful and she gives me yummy food and thinks of me with my strict vegan diet.
I’m grateful for my older sister. She shares her thoughts with me, encourages me, and wants to see me do well.
I’m grateful for my sister in law. She has the best stories, and a consistently positive attitude.
