Another Day

Up and at ’em. Back at it. Repetition and all that. Deja-Vu. As Iron Maiden once said, “feel like I’ve been here before.” Probably because I was here before. Yesterday, in fact. Today is another day in the office. Celebrate with a cat pic:

236/365

Roar.

I’m tired. I went to bed earlier than usual last night but it doesn’t seem to have been enough. Maybe it’s just mental fatigue induced by driving for an hour to get to work. Who knows. Maybe it’s just mental fatigue induced by the collapse of american society. What used to be our country sucks a little more with each passing day and maybe it’s just wearing me out. Could be.

We’ve reached the point in the week where I start looking longingly toward the weekend. I can’t do a band practice on Sunday so I threw out the idea of doing Saturday instead. It’s still up in the air. I want to do some sunrise/ocean photos too but the weather forecast calls for shitty with a chance of shitty on Saturday. Sunday looks okay. Will it be okay at sunrise? Too soon to speculate.

Shit. I feel like I need a new hobby. I don’t want a new hobby, I just feel like I need one. Man, simple things get confusing when you reach old age (see yesterday’s post for more. Yes, I know I have not reached old age yet) and your country flushes itself down the crapper. All I really want to do is curl up in a ball on the couch and wait for it all to finish crushing me. You know how it is, right?

Sunday is out for band practice because I have to go to a wake. My cousin’s husband passed suddenly last week. I think that might be part of the reason for the funk I’m in right now. I also have a medical procedure on the books for Tuesday and I think I have to start prepping for it a couple of days in advance. I won’t say what it is. It’s not a procedure really, it’s just a test. Let’s say it’s one of those tests that people in their 50’s need to have and it involves completely clearing out your digestive system. Nudge nudge, wink wink. Are you digging where I’m coming from? Are you picking up what I am putting down? Ouch town, population me, bro. Maybe that’s another source of funk-feeling. Not funk in a good sense. Not funk in a George Clinton sense. Funk in a… blahhhhh sense. You get it.

Okay. Time to get cracking on the work day. Two meetings on the books. Both require some prep work. Get to it, Red Head!

Is Something Wrong?

I’ve written this 100 times before over the three years (almost) since I had my gastric bypass surgery. There are times when I will be feeling real pain in my stomach and I cannot tell if it’s because something is wrong or because I am just hungry.

The last couple of days have taken that to a pretty obnoxious extreme. It’s always hunger, but it’s just ridiculous now. When things are going according to the normal routine I can have something to eat and then be okay for a few hours. Breakfast at 7:00, a snack at around 11:00, lunch at 1:00, a snack at 4:00, dinner at 7:00, a snack before bed. Perfect. Hunger pains avoided.

Today? Breakfast is over at 8:00, hunger pains at 9:45. Snack at 10:00, hunger pains at 11:15. What the hell? It’s 11:50 right now and I am slowly making my way through a little package of crackers. At this rate I’ll be finished by noon and then hurting a little before lunch at 1:00. I need to wait 60 minutes after eating before I can take a drink (and having a drink usually doesn’t help the hunger pain the way having something to eat does) which means the pain is back before I am clear to drink.

What the hell, bro? Is there something wrong AND I’m hungry? No, I don’t think so. I think I am unable to keep my surgically altered stomach from getting too empty. If I try to have a big lunch I am going to be full and have to stop, and (assuming this continues today) I still won’t get three pain-free hours.

To add the usual caveat, I am not complaining at all. I lost 220 pounds and if dealing with this now and then is the price I have to pay then I pay it with a great big smile on my face. Still… looking at my stomach and asking, what the hell, bro??

Bite

Sonofabitch.

Yesterday, while eating lunch, I bit my lip. It swelled up like you wouldn’t believe. It hurt like a bastard. It took all night for most of the swelling to go down. It was still sore this morning.

Wouldn’t you know it, I bit my lip again during lunch today. It was exactly the same spot. All the swelling is back. All the pain is back. Two pints of blood are gone. I’m feeling really lucky that I brought some paper towels with me today because I needed them to mop up the gore.

Stop doing that, asshole.

Ouchie

30 minutes of marching in place this morning.

10 minutes on the exercise bike during my lunch break. I probably could have kept it going a little longer, but I ran out of time.

The two things combined, along with going up and down the cellar stairs a number of times throughout the day, equal… ouch.

Maybe we’ll do 15 minutes on the bike tomorrow? We’ll see.

Wiped Out

We did so much stuff around the house this weekend. I need a weekend to recover from the weekend.

We’re pretty optimistic that the contractor will be done in the cellar today or tomorrow. After that we need to put all the furniture back where it belongs. I had to move everything away from the walls last night so that he can finish the baseboards. Once everything’s back where it’s going we’ll mount the new television on the wall and then… maybe watch a movie or something?

Then I need to move my office space downstairs too. There’s an exercise bike that needs to move too. Oh yeah, I forgot that we got a nice sound system for the new TV. That needs to go in before our first movie date.

Then what? We got a couple of foldable room divider things. One will go between the living room and the work space and the other will wall off the laundry room. The last thing, I think, is to figure out where the new music nook will go. It has to be close enough to the office so that I can use my computer for more wonderful home recording demo amazingness. I haven’t recorded a song in two months. That needs to change.

After all of that?

Oh, just surgery.

Ouch

I was just doing my walking-in-place exercise-like whatever it is. I felt a bit of a twinge in my left ankle.

Ouch, babie.

I’m okay, but for a minute there I was afraid my 30 minutes was going to get shut down at 20 minutes.

Here’s hoping this isn’t something that’s going to be a thing, you know?

Ouch, babie… Ouch

I was sitting at my desk at 8:30am, 30 minutes before I start work, and I thought: Robert, you are going to do 15 minutes of exercise by walking very briskly in place. Hells yeah, you are.

Five minutes later I stopped because my back was hurting like crazy. Hells yeah, it was.

The same thing happened yesterday while I Was trying to do a second round of 15 minutes to close the 30 minute exercise ring on my Apple Watch. I powered through that time, but I couldn’t today.

In the immortal words of Austin Danger Powers, ouch babie… ouch.

I need to keep an eye on this today. I don’t want to hurt myself, but there’s a bag of Hershey’s Kisses off to my left and karmically speaking I need to do the 30 minutes so I can eat those suckers. I do understand that this arrangement makes no actual physiological sense, but shut up and leave me alone.

Here’s to a back pain free day… as if.

My Mask Tried to Hurt Me

Earlier tonight I needed to put on a mask. I had a slick little disposable N95 deal. I went to hook it over my ears and…….

Poked my idiot self in the eye.

That was like an hour ago.

It still hurts.

Stupid mask. Stupid, stupid mask.