7Wannabe5-Take9-One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts

[Henry]

Then I can be simultaneously wheezing, sneezing, randomly shitting blood and mucus, swollen in all my joints, puffed up like a tick on prednisone, covered with large itchy patches, squinting with sticky red-rimmed eyes, and balding. Wish me luck on getting laid in that eventuality.

I'm sure there's a Subreddit community of men who fantasize about black plague chicks.

[7Wannabe5]

@Henry:

Well, yes, but as we used to say in my therapy group, everybody has a sex life, just not necessarily one you would prefer to take part in.

[mountainFrugal]

...but I want to contribute something intellectual property-ish also.

If you have not created something already, you can always do some spontaneous art while there and try selling that. Type a poem or write a 1 paragraph short story with a typewriter? $5. 3 for $10 once you have a stack of them? Buy a book get a poem/story for $3? People who are into old books would love that stuff.

[7Wannabe5]

@mF:

Doing something spontaneously onsite is a great idea! I should mention that the very cheap table-rent flea market in which we plan to be participating this summer is not necessarily towards the "loves old books" crowd. That's one of the reasons why the overall project-scape is going to be a bit towards performance art and/or immersive experience, perhaps inclusive of some kind of livestreaming for the benefit of my youngest sister's hipster friend circle. My second sister made an animatronic drumming bear for her children's music band. Your suggestion made me wonder whether it could be temporarily re-fashioned as a typing bear? Or maybe make our own special sort of claw machine? I have a brain-stormed list of about 100 different possible products I could contribute given that the broad overlapping themes are Lost Books, Found Arts, Up North Michigan, 4 Kooky Sisters Amusing Themselves. Some examples would be:

1) earrings made out of jack pine cones.
2) apple head doll kit.
3) children's book about the adventures of a 5 lined skink.
4) whimsical hypatufa planters and statuettes.
5) curated collection of classic used beach books, including an entire shelf containing nothing but yellowed mass market copies of "Jaws."
6) temporary tattoos based on my collection of photos of insects of the region.
7) wild huckleberry muffins.
8) ginseng growing starter kit.
9) natural wintergreen facial tonic.
10) cool old map reprints.
11) campfire sing-a-long books.
12) bird-watching hats.
13) kite-making kits.

[7Wannabe5]

SKILLATHON 2024

January:
1)Meta-Self-Improvement Retrospective Towards Skillathon Planning.
2)Intuitive Eating/Gentle Nutrition/Fun Movement.

February:
1)Sixty-Two Pick-Up.
2) GTD/Minimalism/Clutter-Control Reboot

March:
1) GTD/Minimalism/Clutter-Control Reboot cont.
2) Gonzo Capitalism: Family Flea Market Project

April:
1)GTD/Clutter Control Reboot cont./Spoon Theory Perspective
2) Data Science Project.
3) Poly-Homerous Planning/Smart Camper Build.
4) Mobile-Permaculture/Scavenger Walking.

May:
1)April Overflow.
2)Gonzo Capitalism Redux.

June:
1)Family Flea Market: a multi-faceted cooperative project with my three sisters.

July:
1)Transcendent Eco-Sexuality
2)Swimming

August: Data Science Project Redux/Finale.
September: YTBD
October: Tree Climbing
November: End of Life Planning/62 Pickup Redux.
December: Video Games/Electronics/Basic Math Videos.


I haven't yet been able to get started with my originally scheduled Skillathon events for April. I did finish my reboot of GTD (Getting Things Done) and some other of my typical spreadsheets/tracking systems. This led to the ever more clear realization that the vicious cycle which is Crohn's Disease Exhaustion/Typical Aging/Increasingly-Out-of-Shape has severely reduced the number of Life Energy Spoons I have in my drawer to accomplish anything on a daily basis. All my committed/theoretical/someday-maybe projects and associated files/folders are organized and locked and loaded with Next Actions, but since I apparently only have about 4 hours/day of physical/mental energy to direct to any task at this juncture, it seems almost like an exercise in sealing all my Next Actions in amber. I have a very simple Daily Routine/Weekly Routine (tidy kitchen/apply eczema cream/trash out etc.) , approximately 12-19 hrs of scheduled math tutoring for $ and community service each week, an ongoing cycle of 3 credit hours at double-speed (equivalent to 6 credit hours) of graduate course-work in IT/Data Science, and given the occasional pop-up priority, this is enough to pretty much tap me out for anything else beyond the level of flat-on-my-back leisure reading.

Since I was required to complete a mini-project in data science this month, I moved this focus up in my Skillathon schedule, but also left it in place for August, because that is the month I need to focus on my big final M.S. project. The mini-project was pretty boring; more like a crash course in Power BI, but I was able to amuse myself a bit by making it more mathematically convoluted than necessary. Why I continue on this track at all is a bit of a semi-deep mystery, since my vision of myself as full-time tech-worker is pretty much a mash-up of the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer just pretends like he is a corporate employee and the Seinfeld episode in which George's father leaves retirement to return to full-time employment and is forced out, because too tired/cranky to attend late meetings. I guess it's kind of like how some people learn how to weld so they can make $$ fixing stuff and other people learn how to weld so that they can dream about turning industrial trash into a giant fanciful garden statuary. I recently added "Create a new form of novel (tone=despair and/or sociopathy) based on screenshots of Microsoft Project" to my GTD Someday/Maybe spread-sheet page (irony noted.)

My romantic/sexual life also continues in slow-motion circling the drain fashion. Every month, one of my exes (or semi-exes?) gets in touch with me, takes me out to dinner, expresses his affection for me, but also his understanding (agreement) that I am in too terrible shape to get myself laid.

Even-though-or-because I am in such terrible shape, there is a possibility that when my commitment to tutor the disadvantaged children is over at the end of May, I will do something like give up my tiny garret apartment and rough-camp out of my Smart car in a National Forest. Whatever doesn't actually kill you makes you stronger, right?

[Henry]

Whatever doesn't actually kill you makes you stronger, right?

So you, your significant other and your best friend decide to go mountain climbing. During the climb, you lose your balance, fall down the mountain end up a quadriplegic. Your SO takes the opportunity to leave you and go with your best friend. So now you're stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of your life knowing your best friend is doing god knows what to your SO. Your ruminating on this state of affairs and some orderly comes over to change your diapers and they ask you what happened. You say I fell down a mountain and right now my best friend is banging my ex. The orderly processes that and says "Well, whatever doesn't actually kill you makes you stronger, right." And you think about it for a second and say to the orderly can you bring me a metal spoon for my jello, this plastic one isn't working. So the orderly brings you the metal spoon and you take that metal spoon and dig into his eye socket until his eyeball is hanging out of his fucking face and he starts screaming all types of bullshit and you use your plastic spoon to get a mouthful of jello and say that's such good advise I thought we both could use it.

[UrbanHomesteader]

Thanks for the update!

Sounds like you have hit a bit of a rough patch and are considering your options.

I totally relate to the limited spoons situation.

[7Wannabe5]

@Henry:

Although I agree with your general take on the truism, I have to note that I am actually happy that my practice of solo polyamory allows for my partners to seek/interact with other partners while I am feeling too irky to be sexual myself. I was reading a piece in the NYT this morning about humans who claim to be happy to be stuck in sexless marriages, and I know that I never again want to find myself in that situation, whether I found myself once again in the role of wanting more sex or if I was the one with sex-drive or ability vanquished for whatever reason. I mean, it's not like I don't ever flare up for a moment in jealousy or envy, but I am pretty well able to immediately reflect upon how I value my own freedom more, and I am also able to sincerely hope that everyone I know is having a great sex life even if I'm currently not up for one.

@UrbanHomesteader;

I'm actually in a better place after getting totally organized with GTD to the extent that my low level of vigor became undeniable. Prior to fully recognizing this reality, I was feeling very frustrated with myself for overall low performance. It was like I thought I had my "normal" spoon budget of 8 instead of my new reduced spoon budget of 4, so I was bouncing checks on my Vigor account at least twice a week. IOW, I found myself constantly over-estimating what I ought to be able to accomplish based on projection of "What I was able to do just 5 or 10 years ago." My physical vigor is worse than my mental vigor, so, for instance, right now I can type this post (task with very moderate mental energy requirement), but there is no way I could do a set of Next Actions such as Haul Laundry Down to Car-> Laundromat (task with moderate physical energy requirement.) If I scheduled myself to Go to the Laundromat and Do a 2 hour Data Science Lab Assignment tomorrow, that would be pretty much all I could accomplish beyond my very basic Daily Routine. All I really did today was tutor for around 4 hours, but as soon as I finish typing this post, I am going to collapse in my bed and just read light mystery novel until I fall asleep.

[thef0x]

Lurking / catching up but just wanted to chime in to say that despite the tough go of it with the wiles of our corporeal nature, you seem to be kicking ass in situ.

Sure it sucks to compare to how things used to be... I used to have hair lol

But, ya know.. bodies. (Insert that "wah wah" sound here).

So I hope you're congratulating yourself for how you've managed a tough situation -- something that's potentially hard notice from within but easy to spot from without. Glad to hear you've found acceptance there; I'm rooting for you and your recovery.

Also, for whatever reason, your capitalization of the word Vigor has thrown me and my scattered brain in the best kind of way. I've never been one to capitalize "sacred words" but I can get on board with Vigor, smart.

[7Wannabe5]

@thefOx:

Thanks for the kind words, but I think it is pretty clear that I haven't yet achieved acceptance if I am fantasizing about "curing" myself with nature immersion, like I am Heidi's sickly cousin Clara*, who only needed some fresh mountain air and goat's milk to free her from her wheelchair.

*Or Mary's sickly cousin Colin in "The Secret Garden", or the1970s YA novel about the chubby, rich girl who is stranded on an island, etc.

[7Wannabe5]

SKILLATHON 2024

January:
1)Meta-Self-Improvement Retrospective Towards Skillathon Planning.
2)Intuitive Eating/Gentle Nutrition/Fun Movement.

February:
1)Sixty-Two Pick-Up.
2) GTD/Minimalism/Clutter-Control Reboot

March:
1) GTD/Minimalism/Clutter-Control Reboot cont.
2) Gonzo Capitalism: Family Flea Market Project

April:
1)GTD/Clutter Control Reboot cont./Spoon Theory Perspective
2) Data Science Project-mini.

May:
1)Family Flea Market: a multi-faceted cooperative project with my three sisters.
2)Transcendent Eco-Sexuality-extremely rough start.

June:
1)Family Flea Market: a multi-faceted cooperative project with my three sisters.
2) Poly-Homerous Planning/Smart Camper Build.
3) Swimming.
4) Data Art Project.

July:
1)Swimming
2)Family Flea Market: a multi-faceted cooperative project with my three sisters.
3) Poly-Homerous Planning/Smart Camper Build.

August:
1)Data Science Project Redux/Finale.
2)Family Flea Market: a multi-faceted cooperative project with my three sisters.
3) Poly-Homerous Planning/Smart Camper Build.

September: YTBD
October: Tree Climbing
November: End of Life Planning/62 Pickup Redux.
December: Video Games/Electronics/Basic Math Videos.

UNASSIGNED
1) Gonzo Capitalism
2) Mobile-Permaculture/Scavenger Walking.


Well, I'm finally having a bit of fun again even though I'm still in terrible shape physically, and I'm still stuck in the trudging marathon rut for another 18 weeks working on my IT/Data M.S. Actually, the course I am currently taking at double-speed is more interesting to me, because the textbook covers aspects of Data Art as well as Data Science, and there's also a good deal of focus on misleading data visualizations which happens to be one of my personal pet peeves (see VO2 max thread on this forum.) If I can continue to ignore stuff like the fact that one of my fellow students works for a predatory lending company, using his data skills to predict which low income individuals are less likely to default on junk mail instant loan offers at usurous rates, I just might make it to the finish line.

My tutoring school year came to an end just in time for me to spend a couple weeks working with my sisters on Family Flea Market project-scape. My youngest sister is really honcho-ing this project-scape, although it is integrating and incorporating many of the leftovers from the internet-based rare book business I ran for many years with my second-oldest sister (I'm the oldest of 4 sisters.) So far within the broad confines of this project-scape, my youngest sister wrote/illustrated and published a zine on the topic of the 10,000 things humans already know about when they're born. She also created a design for silk-screening posters and t-shirts for the project-scape, and we printed up our first batches of these, full of interesting imperfections, in the community room of our mother's senior living complex. We sorted out used/rare books we had in storage, focusing on the topic of lost arts and crafts, which was one of the specialties of our former business. We also got back out on the book sale circuit in order to purchase many $5 bags full of mass market beach reads, because our flea market venue is in a resort town.

I was afraid the venue was going to be a bit seedy, but it turned out to be much more towards antique/artisan vendors. Our merchandise was a good fit for the mix. Traffic was quite slow, because the resort season doesn't really start until late June, but somehow the time just flew by as I manned the booth for 6 hours the last two Saturdays. Apparently sitting in a camp chair, drinking coffee, and intermittently talking to other humans about books, especially books on the topic of lost arts and crafts, is easy intersection of some of my purposes in life. The highlight was when one browser picked up a copy of one of the Foxfire manuals and proceeded to tell me how he had participated with a group that followed the instructions in the book for making pine tar. Turned out he was an expert on all sorts of primitive crafts, especially creating textiles from plants. For example, he makes fish nets from the bark of Linden trees. He actually said these words to me, "One of my fish nets, you can bunch it up really small in your pocket, and then if you're out on a walk and there's a really good apple tree, you can fit all the apples you want in the net." Mind blown! Also, a cute young couple were browsing our collection of edible plant books, and the guy said to the girl, "I am not eating Lamb's Quarter.", and I was able to share how delicious it was a subsitute for spinach in spanikopita. Meanwhile, in our beach reads department (table), I was able to get the girl scout selling cookies in the space next to us started on a fun young adult series, and promoted one of my favorite series of British cozy mysteries to a couple other customers.

I also gave myself a minor checkmark towards accomplishing some work towards Trancendent Eco-Sexuality with the semi-dubious accomplishment thus far of the Sexuality Wheaton Level Table thread I started elsewhere on this forum. I'm currently reading "Matter & Desire: An Erotic Ecology" by Andreas Weber and his take is more in alignment with the North Star I want to veer towards:

Being in the world is primarily an erotic encounter, an encounter of meaning through contact, and encounter of being oneself through the significance of others-humans, lovers, children, but also other beings, companions and competitors... this book describes ecological reality as a relational system. And conversely, it comprehends love as an ecological process.

I will end this journal entry with the sad true story that after spending 2 days in my company and observing that I was punishing myself for having gained some weight by wearing hand-me-down clothing from the collection of our 84 year old mother, my youngest sister took it upon herself to take a trip to WalMart and buy me a new summer wardrobe off the clearance rack. And, yes, I had to admit that this actually perked me up a bit, which caused a good deal of hilarity due to fact that you really know that you have hit dysfunctional-form-cheapness-disguised-as-frugality bottom in Girl Stuff budget self-care when a new wardrobe from the Walmart clearance rack constitutes a massive improvement

[Frita]

Congrats on your new Walmart summer capsule wardrobe! (With frugal washing techniques, I bet you’ll squeeze more wear and enjoyment than typically possible.) Getting older, especially as a woman, seems to be like being slimed in a cloak of invisibility. “Why bother?” suddenly seems pragmatic.

Last week I got new bras and underwear after making due for months (or maybe a year) because at this point, I am the only person seeing me wearing the stuff. It’s nice being at a place where I can better appreciate things as they are…or at least accept gravity and that I will most likely look worse in the future.

[Henry]

Last week I got new bras and underwear after making due for months (or maybe a year) because at this point, I am the only person seeing me wearing the stuff.

You have to admit It would be kind of funny if your husband thinks the same thing when he wears them.

[Frita]

[quote=Frita post_id=290223 time=<a href="tel:1717643539">1717643539</a> user_id=6138]
Last week I got new bras and underwear after making due for months (or maybe a year) because at this point, I am the only person seeing me wearing the stuff.

You have to admit It would be kind of funny if your husband thinks the same thing when he wears them.
[/quote]
He still runs around the house in his underwear. Who knows what he wears in the bat cave?

[7Wannabe5]

Getting older, especially as a woman, seems to be like being slimed in a cloak of invisibility. “Why bother?” suddenly seems pragmatic.

Yes, but this is only partially true. For example, being noticed, turning heads, as you walk across a public space is different than being noticed or politely appraised by the 65 year old man you arranged to meet for a coffee date. And as much as it seems like it would be relaxing to collapse once and forever into allowing yourself to look like Aunt Bea and focus your life energies mainly on pickle-making skills, you trudge out to the mailbox and smiling out at you from the cover of a free introductory copy of AARP magazine is Brooke Shields, who has been your extremely attractive famous person who is almost exactly the same age as you nemesis since you were 12 years old. And your only consolation is in bitterly noting that it does appear that she must now draw on her massive eyebrows at age 59.

Anyways, my youngest sister quickly made the connection between my current slump and a similar slump I experienced when I was only 26, after I had an appendectomy (8 inch frankensteinian scar remains) while 6 months pregnant and then gave birth, breast-fed my second child, cared for my 2 year old, managed my much too young husband, and studied math. My mother bought me some truly hideous 1980s era matching appliqued maternity sweat-pants sets to wear after I was released from my morphine hazed stay at the hospital, and I just kept wearing them for another 18 months, until they were frayed at the cuffs, greyed from being tossed in the wash as often as ALL the cloth diapers, and covered with baby spit-up and pasta dish of last resort stains. My thought process being that there was no point in wasting money on new clothing until I lost the baby pounds. This is such an intermittent obvious lifelong dysfunction of mine that I track my Girl Stuff category spending with an eye on when it is getting too low rather than too high. My sister and I also discussed how this dysfunction of mine is almost certainly partially reactivity to our mother's tendency towards bi-polar spendaholic clothing shopping sprees. For example, she could easily go out and spend $2000 (in 2024 $) on clothing in one trip when I was a teenager. So, choosing to wear her hand-me-downs is especially dysfunctional of me. OTOH, my sister had to self-aware overcome her own "being like Mom" aversion in order to choose to go buy me my Walmart clearance rack mini-wardrobe. So, it was a bit of a mini-therapy event for both of us. Since our frugal father was also our only warm and competent parent (luckily, he was very warm and engaged for a man of his generation), it's just too easy for us to peg Frugal = Good, Spendy= Bad, as well as Frugal = High Class, Spendy = Low Class, since this was our upper-middle-gentry/elite class father's take on our working-class-background mother's spendy behavior. This runs so deep with me that one of the things I loved about the last man I loved (who was from an even more upper-gentry/elite background than my father) was that he wore this terrible, old, rumpled trench coat.

My point here being that there is a specific variety of dysfunctional "cheapness" (as opposed to high level creative frugality) that I often display when I am in my functionally depressive mode of my tendency towards cyclothymia. I am generally quite functional, even still socially smiling, in my depressive mode. I actually seem more like a normal person when I am depressed, because it's like I'm moving through molasses, so it's easier to just do normal things that are more structured. For example, if it is daytime and you see me watching television and eating macaroni and cheese from a box, like 90% probability that I am in a functional depressive phase. If I am on year two of working the same W2 9-5 job with a car-needful commute, then I am probably in a functional depressive phase. Etc. etc. This is why the clear march up the path to higher function on any Wheaton Scale model rarely hold true for me. I relate more empathetically to the character in a recent very good satirical novel who is a super successful hedge fund manager, but then suffers a personal tragedy, and almost purposefully drops all his functioning and accumulated capital to the point that at one juncture he finds himself having to perform a blow-job on a trucker at a rest-stop in order to scrounge up a few bucks to continue on his way. IOW, it is my belief that smart people make "stupid" decisions, in complete realization that they are making "stupid" decisions, quite frequently. For example, I actually do possess a fashion sense, so I knew quite well that I was hurting both myself and the eyeballs of anybody who gazed upon me by deciding to not give a damn about being seen in public dressed like a slob. I just didn't care.

[Henry]

He still runs around the house in his underwear. Who knows what he wears in the bat cave?

I just had a vision of you sharing Oprah's couch with Rex Heuermann's wife. Hopefully it doesn't mean anything.

[7Wannabe5]

When I was, once again, at Walmart yesterday, picking up a prescription and a few other items, I happened upon a wiry, medium-sized guy in his 60s who was wearing snug white jockey shorts or underwear which were pretty much see-thru. As I made my way to a more populated aisle further away from him, I encountered a woman in her 30s on her cell phone describing the guy to her husband, so I indicated that "No, she wasn't imagining it or over-reacting. Yes, I had seen him too." and she laughed and said, "My husband said 'That's WalMart for you.'" and I said. " I just thought it was yet another sign of the coming apocalypse (sigh)", which I think might have made her wonder whether or not I might also not be the sanest person in the mega-store. I only somewhat blame the influence of this forum for the fact that my comment was not unrelated to the fact that the majority of the books I've recently read have words such as "tragedy", "precipice", "disaster", and "predicament" in their titles.

[Henry]

"My husband said 'That's WalMart for you.'"

You do realize they have a website for these people.

https://www.peopleofwalmart.com

[7Wannabe5]

@Henry:

Yes, but whacky and/or tacky is one thing, and wearing bottom gear so translucent that I could pick out the exact shade of his junk from a swatch of pink paint options is another. I actually think it is possible that he even purposefully dampened himself to get that wet t-shirt effect. Maybe he was hoping that he was just old enough to get the possible incipient senility pass for his exhibition.

[Henry]

I haven't done the test drive on faux senility. I worry that If try and I'm not convincing, I'm still at the age that people will beat the shit out of me.