Just got back home from the grocery store. Got two pints of non-dairy ice cream and downed one of them. Chocolate. Yummy yum yum!
And now I’m chillin’ and eating Crispix while watching JRE #1477 with Tony Hawk.
Crispix is an interesting cereal name. For me especially, it is an interesting name.
Chris picks Crispix. Crispix Crispix.
Yummy cereal. I haven’t has cereal in months. Got me a big family size Crispix which is one of my fav cereals. I’m spoling myself today!
Today’s todolist is simply to set up a Facebook Shop. I gotta put aside my ideals for the moment, because I’m really hurting financially. Just checked my bank balance this morning and I’m down to $200 in my checking account. eBay fees really caught me off guard this month.
Anyway, there is good news. I’m going to make rent just fine because I can pull some money out of Coinbase. The economy should be making a comeback now that we are coming out of the COVID-19 lockdowns. In theory, people should be headed back to work and have more spending money to put towards trading cards.
I think the Facebook shop will be a good thing for my business. I’m sure there are huge numbers of people on Facebook who will see the cards.
I just have to keep in mind that Facebook is not my friend. I’m not going to participate in the social network, I’m just there for business.
I’m also gonna set up an Amazon store. Market diversity is going to be a very good thing!
I dunno what else to write about. I suppose I should pause JRE and focus for a bit haha.
Ok then. I paused and hid the video from myself. Focus time!
SpaceX’s latest Starlink Mission was postponed due to a tropic storm. How unfortunate! That’s okay though. The next SpaceX mission is going to be launching two NASA astronauts to the ISS. This is going to be the first time SpaceX has transported people.
I just got off the phone with my brother M. He and I haven’t talked in a long time and it was good to hear from him. My therapist has been urging me to reach out to friends and family, which I haven’t been doing. M. called me out of the blue and I really appreciated it.
M. was driving home from a job in central Washington and he called and said he wanted to catch up. We talked for about 45 minutes mostly about rollerblading. M. has been going to skateparks and got a new pair of AEON aggressive skates. I forgot the brand name.
LOL what the hell are these?
Rolling skate guards for ice skates. First time I’ve heard of such a thing. Basically a temporary conversion from ice skates to rollerskates, so you can get to and from the card without having to take your ice skates off! Pretty smart design.
But yeah, I forget the brand of my brother’s skates. Roces, was it? I think he said Powerslide. IDK.
Yeah, it was good to take a moment and catch up with M. I hope to talk to him more often that I have been, since I always enjoy his company.
Maybe M. is someone I can reach out to when I want to talk to someone. I have thought of calling K. or A., but it’s hard to call anyone at all. M. is probably a safe choice now that I know he is okay talking with me on the phone in general.
There’s a stigma with phone calls nowadays. Texting is the new normal. You know, I think texting is a bad way to communicate. I think texting should be reserved for, “let’s talk”, or “let’s meet” messages. Full on conversations via text are just aggravating. It’s too low of bandwidth to communicate properly. There is no vocal inflection or accurately conveyed emotion.
There is little attention and commitment in texting. People will send a message, then go off and do something else for awhile. Meanwhile, someone who wanted something out of the conversation has to wait anywhere between tens of minutes to tens of hours for a response.
Just no. We have all this technology and this connectedness nowadays. Text should be the last form of communication on the list of acceptable communication methods.
Texting is mostly two people imagining what the other person is thinking. This leads to all sorts of misunderstandings, delays, misinterpretations and stress.
Random fun micro Tetris console.
I want a didgeridoo. Like for really reals I want a didgeridoo. I think it might help me with my sleep apnea.
Oh yeah, I have sleep apnea. I realized last night just how bad it is. Last night I lied down trying to sleep, but really payed attention at how I naturally breathe when I’m relaxed and trying to sleep.
Let’s just say that I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m gasping for air all night long. My nose feels so constricted. Air does not travel through it without exceptional strain.
Breathing through my mouth is even worse. My neck hole seems to completely collapse in on itself when I relax.
It’s no wonder that I’ve been complaining about feeling like I’ve had poor sleep quality so often. My airways are often completely blocked!
I don’t know what to do about this. I don’t know how I’m sleeping at all. It takes a lot of focus to breath properly, and that focus goes away when I relax and sleep. My body is on it’s own and sucking air through a passageway that seems as effective as a coffee drinking straw.
I suppose I have some research to do. I bet even YouTube would have suggestions about this.
Ugh. I’m tired even now. I could use a nap. I haven’t even got to work yet!
A nap would be nice before video games this evening. I don’t think I’m going to get to play video games with M. this week. He was supposed to have a day off yesterday. He said he had a date but he had to cancel last minute because he had an emergency call into work. That rescheduling means his date is tonight, which means he’s probably not going to be on Teamspeak until after I’ve gone to bed.
It’s unfortunate, but that’s just how the cookie crumbles sometimes. I can still play video games, but I won’t have the shared experience with M. this week.
Last night was pretty good regardless. I got three rounds of Squad in. I played as infantry and I had some great games. I think I’m definitely improving in my combat skills and my response time. The game becomes a lot more enjoyable when I’m able to navigate around the map without constantly being killed. When I get into firefights, I’m competent, I call out targets, I make my shots count, I displace after shooting to disorient the enemy and make it appear that I am not alone, and I win the engagements.
Last night I got a couple 200 meter headshots. 1 shot, 1 kill. Several engagements I just saw an enemy appear and I popped them with one or two shots. I’m definitely getting better at the game and turning into a killing machine worthy of competitive play.
It’s better with friends. Last night I played solo, with random people on public servers. The teamwork was so-so. Lots of new players online. Lots of lost matches, but I was alone so I could easily hop to a different server when the games were headed south. I didn’t get to see my scores because of this, but I figure that scores don’t matter. The experience matters. The experience and the practice of being in firefights, making engagements, outsmarting the enemy… I got plenty of that.
I am leveling myself up and improving myself so I can shine when it really matters– when I’m playing with my friends!
I also got a bit of practice at communications. I practiced being myself when I’m with others. I hummed a little every now and then. I gave myself permission to be humorous. I forgave myself when it became awkard.
These are all good things. It’s also great how I moderated my gaming session. Even when M. came online via Teamspeak on Android, I was honest about how long I planned to spend in the game. I prioritized my own health and sanity. I kept the match limit to three games, despite how much fun I was having and how much I desired to keep playing.
I recognized that I was having a great time, and I was on a dopamine high. I was having fun, but I was also exhausted. From the start of the video game session, I was feeling like I could have gone to bed early and not played at all. I thought of not playing at all, but then I remembered just how important to me keeping a schedule is.
When I’m feeling good and feeling like I want to settle into a virtual world, I remember that this isn’t the world that I have to deal with most of the time. This isn’t the world where my body lives. This isn’t the world where I have to feed myself, pay rent, and try to make a business succeed.
As much fun as it might be to live in Squad, it’s not healthy. It would stop being fun in a matter of hours, as my eyes and my brain would struggle to keep up with the billions of pixels projecting their photons into my face.
It’s a great place to visit, but I can’t live there. It’s not practical. It’s not healthy. It’s not wise.
So I will visit! I will reserve a majority of my energy to improving myself, building my business, and making ends meet. I will visit Squad and other video games every Tuesday and Wednesday from approximately 8:30PM to 11:30PM! Those times will be sacred, immensely fun, and pleasurable because I have the foresight and the wisdom to know that such things are best experienced with moderation.
I did good on my plan last night. I recognize that success and I plan on replicating that moderation this evening. 3 rounds is all I’m going to play in a day, and that’s more than enough to have a good time.
46. I love who I am.
47. I will allow peace to fill my soul.
48. Today is a new day; I will see what adventure it holds.
I just put those affirmations in the middle of this post because.. I dunno. I felt like being different today.
There were two girls playing Squad last night. Girls make some of of the best teammates because they seem to communicate really well. IDK if that’s women in general, or just the women who play Squad happen to also communicate well. I wonder if this is just perception, or something that can be provable… IDK!
Anyway, there was this situation where an enemy machine gunner holed himself up in a building. One by one, he was mowing down my teammates as we tried to flush him out of there. The people who went down continued to communicate, calling out where the machine gunner was to the friendlies who were still operational. I was one of the operational people and I fell the same way as the people before me. That damn machine gunner just had too much ammo!
LOL what a funny. Anyway, there was a girl playing and she was very accurately describing to the other players where this machine gunner was hiding.
Now that I think about it, there wasn’t anything really special about her descriptions. Maybe the special thing was her voice. Very feminine sounding and higher pitched than most of the people I hear in game.
I like it. I like hearing lots of different types of voices. I like the dynamic of hearing people from all sorts of cultures and mannerisms. One time I played with this Chinese guy who was super impatient. He kept asking the Squad Leader to go on the attack, when our team was defending. He just wanted to blast things ASAP. When we finally got some trigger time and fought of an enemy assault, he immediately got impatient and begged for some more things to kill. It was pretty funny.
Read Chapter Two, pages 16-18. What drives your need to control and avoid others? Did you ever experience abuse or neglect when you were groing up? Did that affect your self-image? Describe.
CoDA 30q #9
My need to control and avoid others stems from not having control at all. I want to be in control! I want to know what’s going to happen and I don’t like surprises. I want to feel safe and secure and not have to worry about the unexpected.
I can’t control situations with other people. Not at all! I have no idea what’s going to happen. I can’t predict what the other person is going to say. Strangers are especially scary because I know nothing about them. I don’t know how they will respond, I don’t know what they will say. Their actions, the background, and their words are completely foreign to me and I can’t control that!
I’m going to tackle the next part of the question in the upcoming days.
For now, I’ll end with a few words of gratitude before I close out this post.
I’m grateful for my legs, my kneess, my cardiovascular system, my muscles. My body. I’m grateful that I can walk 6 miles to and from the grocery store. I have the privilege of a strong, well functioning body that can get me to where I want to go. Not everybody has that.
I’m grateful for the sun, the rain, the air. These things all fuel the trees around me which provide fresh oxygen, materials for housing, shade, and smells. Trees are pretty wonderful and remind me of home.
I’m grateful for non-dairy ice cream! I used a coupon and got 10% off or something like that. I have one more vegan cookie dough ice cream in the freezer that I’m saving for another day.
Today’s walk to the grocery store was really good. I got a wedgie that was really uncomfortable. I had to walk all the way to the grocery store and go to the bathroom to sort that out. It was raining lightly. I forgot to bring water but it was fine because I didn’t get thirsty. As I approached the final leg of the trip, walking up the hill to the house was brutal. My knees hurt. My feet hurt.
I’m not used to walking 6 miles a day. I’m not used to having a backpack full of food on my back, and a shopping bag in my hand. My shoulders and my legs were ready to be done by the time I got home.
It was difficult. I appreciated it nonetheless. I appreciate having this challenge in my life. I appreciate seeing people on the side of the road and saying hi to them. I said hi to four people today. The first one I felt very awkward because we both shared greetings at the same time. I forgave myself. I checked the facts and found no reason to be ashamed, so I let it go.
The second time, I said hello and smiled. I don’t owe them anything. I don’t have to say it a certain way. I have no control of them or the situation. All is well. It is okay to be the one to say hello first. It is okay to be friendly. It is okay to feel not so well or have something weighing on my mind. It’s okay to be in whatever state I’m in. It’s okay to be myself and share this moment with a stranger before we both diverge paths and continue on our ways.
I said hello before another person. It felt good to be friendly and to have a shared experience. It felt good to surrender control. It felt good to not want to control the situation and just be an observer.
I get why Joe Rogan likes pot. He says it makes him feel paranoid. When do I feel paranoid? Not much. I’d like to feel paranoid every now and then, as a reminder of how small I am. It’s not to diminish my own importance or self worth, it’s to simply give me a perspective I don’t normally have.
I’ve been practicing deep breathing. Forcing all the air out of my lungs through my mouth, before filling them completely up with air from my nose. I do this when I start to feel nervous. I tell myself,
“I control nothing. I control absolutely nothing. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t control that person. I don’t control that situation. I can’t control anything. Except my breathing.”
It’s comforting somehow. I think marijuana would put me in a similar state of mind to when I am about to have close contact with a stranger. Contact with a stranger is a situation where I would feel paranoia. I could practice my own coping skills in a safe place with marijuana.
Might be a good experiment.
Excelsior!
