Options

Given my last post, the Easy Button takes on a whole new meaning.  I'm not ready to press just yet, but d*mn I am so tempted sometimes.  It is of course concerning because I really don't have a tough life.  I am soft and untested.  (Not successfully tested that is, I have failed many such, and I continue to do so.)  When a real test comes along I am afraid I will fold like the proverbial house of cards.

I also mentioned earlier that 1 out of 3 is kind of bad.  Well now it's 0 out of 3.  I am at this very moment munching on crackers not intended to be part of this diet, and swilling coffee with powdered creamer.  (The latter is part of my regular diet but certainly not irreprehensible.)  I suppose that I will start again after the new year.  I actually intend to take several days off (5) and try to relax a bit.  I haven't planned it at all and I really need to do so or else it will turn into a nrop fest leaving me again begging forgiveness and very possibly in front of another censure committee.  A df decision could lead to the death of my surviving parent.  It isn't like Christ with the weight of the world on my shoulders, it is just like me with more than I can carry even though it isn't a heavy load at all.  I continue to be so ashamed of myself.

So there are a number of options, 1) visiting my surviving parent, 2) visiting my house down south, 3) visiting my house way down south, 4) a staycation, 5) a location (local vacation - staying in a hotel near several points of interest) 6) a real vacation.  The latter is likely too expensive especially planned at the last minute such as it is now.  #5 is also pretty expensive especially with the transportation bills I recently incurred.  I visited my surviving parent recently (#1) - a good visit, but it was enough and longer visits become really uncomfortable.  #2 is a must.  That has got to happen but I could make it largely perfunctory and not a working time at all.  I do need to get it ready with phone line and cable.  Just being there is stressful.  #3 is worse still.

Finally I could do a staycation and maybe focus on come clean-up and do something "fun" on 3 or 4 days locally.  The only images that come to mind harken back to the days of my earliest posts.  Not good, very expensive and again in a situation as mentioned in the second paragraph of this post.    So #2 & #4 it is brief visit to my house down south followed by a staycation focusing on 3 fun things and working around the house.  Fun things might include going out to eat or going to a museum.  None seem really doable.  That is affordable and fun enough to actually plan.  I know the feel of this.  Spend a lot of money to have a nice time or spend nothing and waste your time off.  That is what this is boiling down to.  The result is just so d*mn predictable.

Life, it just isn't so easy at all is it.  Hence the label attached to the final option.

Preemptive Strike

I have truly come to hate my life.  Of course any reader knows that.  Again it comes to mind whether it is time to end it all.  I want to kill myself before God does it.  He doesn't promise a peaceful death for those he executes.  He just gets the job done.  I suppose I don't deserve a peaceful death.  There is no dignity in death like this.  I suppose there is dignity when you die like Christ, with the weight of the world on your shoulders but with success.  When as one of your last acts you direct your friend to see to your mother welfare and when you solemnly entrust your departing spirit to God's hand confident that you have accomplished his will.

You don't have to be perfect either.  You can die like my mother, surrounded by loving family.  Confident that you have done God's will to the best of your ability.  Simply enduring until the end.

No, not me.  I die a coward.  Ashamed that I failed to carry out God's will, that I performed so poorly that my sick wife left me and my daughter left not just me but the God I tried (weakly) to teach her about.  Of course she saw my own hypocrisy and  imitated it, resulting in her own failures.

She told me that she had a pleasant dream this morning where a number of people at school heard lots of good and positive things about the religion.  For the first time in forever I felt like she had hope to really return to God.  I remembered that I cannot recall for 10 + years having a good dream.  It is all just a struggle for survival.  It isn't like so many in foreign lands, living in a jungle, chasing rats for food, sweltering in the heat of day and/or shivering in the cold.  I have food, clothing, shelter, a congregation (which on some level is loving.)  I have no excuse for my present ills.  Normal people would look at me and say something like:  "Get off your buttox and do something you lazy moron!"  and they would be right in every point:

1. I am on my butt,
2. I am lazy,
3. I am doing nothing and
4. I am a moron (well maybe not technically but I certainly act foolishly which was the intended spirit of the imagined comment.)

Helium is the method of choice.  Party City is the source.  It is expensive and I don't really know if I am ready.  But I don't want to wait until I need it and then not have access.  It's a bad idea all around.  No question.  It is just that I am such a coward, Helium seems like the easiest way out.

Anti Meatloaf

Off the exercise wagon, off the spiritual study wagon.  Still eating right. 2 out of 3, Hmmm that's kind of bad.

Actually I know I am judging myself harshly.  But this is how it always starts.  There is a really good (sort of) reason.  I had some work that really needed to get done.  So I didn't study this AM and didn't exercise either.

I did pick up snacks for work (it was my turn to do so) and have thus far declined to consume any of the fattening treats I purchased for my colleagues.

Not so bad right,  Didn't exercise this morning, well, OK.  Didn't study much this week (umm, well that's troubling but not necessarily an indication of doom.) However, this is how it alwaysstarts.  Some reasonable reason, a "normal" excuse.   And boom, I stop studying, stop exercising, before long stop going to church and as surely as night follows day, I start eating like a pig again.

Now at this point, I have to figure out what to do so that that pattern doesn't repeat.  Pray?  Well that's an excellent idea.  Take a memo to do so as soon as I finish this post (we'll see right?)

Schedule -  OK fine been there, done that.

Ask for help?  -- Ask who?  No one cares except those who can't help.  I have no friends.

Ask the Elders?  Really!!?? and have them stare back at me and say "What do you want us to do?"  I don't mean to make fun of them.  (Actually I suppose I do although i have to acknowledge in the same breath that they are probably doing their very best to help.)

Hmmm, prayer sounds best.  I'll let you know, gentle reader (if there are any such,) how that works out.  It occurs to me that there was just recently an article on prayer I studied for this week's services on prayer.  Maybe I can think of some pointers from that as I finish the studying.

So I have prayed a couple of times, but, of course no answer can reasonably be expected in an abundantly apparent fashion.  It has to be sustained and over a long period of time before you slowly start noticing some improvement in "things" in general.  Most people, including me, really want a more immediate feedback.  But there is simply enough evidence that I can read about that it works.  I just need to swallow my skepticism and make do like the bible, and hence God tells me to do.
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On another note I am supposed to go over to my Ex's place to help her hang a shelf tonight.  She is DF so I shouldn't do it, but, as I said, I have no friends and could use a little human interaction (see earlier post on the subject.)

So I went over hung the shelf and talked another hour, kissed and left.  And that's my allotment for HI (Human Interaction) for another month or so.

Eat Right, Exercise Right, Be Spiritual

 

So as of the last post I was thoroughly disgusted with my recent failures, as any long term reader would realize is typical.  Eating too much, not smart enough, not spiritual enough.  Today I can say that yesterday was not so bad in all but a secular way.  I went to church, I exercised and I ate well.

I reset my spreadsheet to track spiritual and food progress.  Maybe one day I will add exercise, but I am not too worried about that.  The spiritual issues are by far the most important.  The food problem (I eat too much of it) is the thing that I find particularly disgusting in myself.  I am nearing another peak weight.  My clothes don't fit right now.  This makes my appearance slovenly.

I keep trying the same solutions hoping for a different result.  I did have some success with the weight problem using the spreadsheet about 18 months ago.  So it isn't such a long shot.  I also exercised regularly about 8 years ago.  I went to meetings regularly about 12 months ago.  Now I just need to put all these things together and possibly they will start to reinforce one another.

That leaves out the financial and material mess I am in.  And oh by the way, it's not like the food, exercise and spiritual problems will be solved by the plans I am putting in place.  More work is needed there as well.  Overall it is quite a hopeless situation, but I can't just throw up my hands and stop trying.  I actually tried that about 8 months ago.  I figured F*ck it.  I am just going to do what I want.  I did quite a lot of damage to my spirituality but I just wouldn't throw over the big things.  So now I am back, trying to resolve those things, and yes it is just as difficult as it always was.

Another SOC Post

I am feeling better about myself because I worked out for the last 3 days.  Big whoop!  Well it really is if this is the start of something new and permanent.  I can't know that now, but this I know, every time I have started something like this in the past it peters out to nothing after a few days, weeks or, at most, months.  I just cannot keep up any good routine. I guess it is worth continuing to try rather than giving up totally, yet and still again.

I do like the way I feel afterward.  Sometimes I feel like I can't lift my arms or walk up a flight of stairs, but I feel good like I have done something worthwhile.  I suppose this is an idea of what it feels like after a weak JW does some rare Field Service.  I won't know that feeling for quite some time.

The other thing this getting up early so I can work out does is to make me sleepy during the day.  I just don't get as much rest as otherwise.   I should be able to fix that by going to bed sooner.  It has the added benefit of reducing the time spent at home with the munchies.  I am just desperate to loose weight.  I am, obviously, more desperate for comfort food throughout any given day.  Another reason IHMS.  I need to spend maybe just a few minutes a day looking at my fat body in the mirror each morning just to remind myself of why I want to lose pounds.  Then when the moments of temptation occur (such as it is now,) I have a better chance to resist.  I just need to give myself time to call the image to mind and my own disgust.

And now it's Monday and the weekend was awful.  Wasteful and indulgent on multiple levels.  The only good thing is that I went to the meetings. I ate virtually all day Saturday and half the day on Sunday that I wasn't eating.  I didn't work-out as I intended.  As a matter of fact I didn't work out at all.  Another day in depression IRRHMS.

And now Tuesday - a bright spot as this is the 5th week day in a row that I worked out.  It is hard to get up early enough to get here in time, but as a matter of fact I have done so a few days in a row.  Who knows how long this will last.  My best guess is another week or two.

I dreamed of an old quasi girlfriend last night.  She wore a blue cotton nightie and we almost had relations, but not quite.  Her night wear  were incongruous with what I imagine she would wear in real life.  I recall in my dream looking twice and thinking that her attire wasn't as nice as I would have imagined she would wear.  There must be some meaning in that.   As thinking about it driving in I reflected on the fact that I will never be with a woman I love or even admire for years to come.  It is sad to me but my fate is still superior to some and it could be the most one could hope for, if I would just do God's will.  But that just isn't happening.

Oh the name?  "Stream of Consciousness" for those unimaginative and a little slow, such as myself on a really good day.

Cowardice

I worked out this morning for the first time in 8 years (about.)  What a fool I am to have skipped such a vital part of a healthy lifestyle for so long.  I hope I will keep it up, but I really doubt it since I can never keep p any good habit.

I missed lunch today but more than made up for it eating nuts throughout the day.  At one point I though that if I worked out I could eat like I wanted.  I put in all the correct numbers into the elliptical trainer and discovered that in my workout this morning I had burned enough calories to cover the Hershey's chocolate bar I had for breakfast yesterday.  Didn't cover all the X-mas cookies someone brought into work that I have been snacking on voraciously.

I feel like this is hopeless, but I've given up for so long, I just need to pick myself up off the floor and try again, as hopeless as it seems.  If there were a neat (and destructive) alternative that at least promised some small happiness, I would probably jump at the chance.  That never seems to happen though, and when it does, I screw it up.

It has always been a long held but totally distant dream (similar to dreaming of winning the lottery big) that I would sit beside a pretty female on a plane trip and strike up a conversation that turns into something.  When I would travel during college and early years of professional life I would think about it nearly every time I boarded a plane.  The one or two times that someone pretty was seated in easy conversation range, I didn't know what to say and ended up ignoring her (didn't want her to know how incompetent I was.)

So about 5 years ago, long after I had quit thinking about it, it finally happened.  The gal was very pretty but not "high maintenance" pretty.  I started by saying hello and noticed a positive and engaging "hello" in return.  "Good sign" I thought.   Normally I would freeze up but it was still early and I hadn't yet gauged that she was in-fact very cute and slim, both characteristics I really like.  So I was lucid enough to ask if she was headed home or headed out (I know it was a dumb, pathetic line.)  She was headed home as was I (something in common.)  We chatted about where we each lived in the metro area and then where we were from and then a little bit about family and occupation.  We had actually engaged in conversation before the normal freeze up took place.

Then something truly amazing happened, as the discussion on one topic petered out, she took the initiative to bring up some additional topics.  (I know this sounds normal to most guys but this almost never happened to me before.)  With a few brief, and not uncomfortable pauses in the conversation we literally talked from Oakland to DC.  But then, as always happens, I screwed up.  Being so inexperienced, I hadn't asked for her full name.  I knew this as we got close but couldn't think of/bring myself to ask before we landed and parted ways.  I really thing she would have given me her digits.  What a freaking idiot I am.

I actually searched for her on the basis of her employment (USG, urban search & rescue), hobby (singing with a piano player in clubs) and location Arlington, but I never found her again.  I didn't deserve to. The only solace was that I know it would have been one of the worst things I could have done to keep being a good Christian.  That was good, but I certainly felt really bad about it.  I still look back on that whole episode as an example of extreme cowardice on my part.  I am very ashamed of that episode in my life (as I am of so many others.)

Armageddon (Trivial Reference)

To some degree (probably a lot larger than I realize) this blog is making me self absorbed.  Why would I think anyone cares about my private suffering.  I suppose, actually this is just for me.  It isn't really.  I actually pay attention to the page view count.  I want someone else to read this, so there's that.  I do notice that by an order of magnitude (literally) the pages most popular are the ones where I am talking about hiring an escort.  So on my humble blog established (ostensibly) for me to engage in a bit of self healing by articulating my deepest concerns, I have managed to attract sex zombies trolling the web for material with which to titillate themselves.

So what is my self absorbed and titillating self thinking about today?  Actually I am feeling tapped out.  Tired of trying to make progress only to fall flat on my face.  I say I want to be a good Christian, but I fail at every turn.  I have asked for help from the deacons (actually elders, but the average reader would understand the meaning of deacons better) but to no avail.  I guess I could go back, grab them by the lapels and shake until they pay attention and realize how much I am hurting.  But that would probably be a bit much. I am too proud I suppose to continue to beg for help.  That isn't a good trait.  Jesus made the gentile woman beg for table scrap even after he made reference as though her request was coming from little dogs.

Even so it would be like:  Listen to what I already told you!  Think of something more creatively than just asking me what I want you to do.  You are the rescue workers.  You tell me how you can help.

Yea, doesn't sound like a good Christian discussion; I'll just plan to die at Armageddon if not sooner.

Cattywampus

My diet is going to hell now.  I haven't updated my tracking sheet in over a week.  I just pigged out in a major way over lunch today and I ate a big (500 cal) midmorning snack.  I can feel my stomach stretching from the huge lunch portion I consumed.

I am so freaking ashamed of myself. I have no excuse for my actions.  I have no self control to speak of.  So I just got finished with the weekend and it is a shameful mess.  I feel the need for fast for another 3 weeks until the new year.  But, of course I don't have the ability.  I will just have to keep trying (and hoping for a different outcome than before) which is, of course, insane.

There are a few basics I can depend on.  I have goals:

1. Be a good Christian
1. Study
2. Meetings
3. Prayer
4. Service
2. Take Care of myself physically
1. Loose Weight
2. Exercise
3. Take care of myself (and others as needed) fiscally
1. Work hard and feel good about the work I do (if possible)
2. Conduct myself in a fiscally responsible manner
4. Be a good Father
5. Take care of the things in my purview
1. Home
2. Auto
3. Other
6. Entertainment for the sake of Sanity and Continued Productivity

And the goals/responsibilities are so many that I just can't seem to deal with it all.

The ability to shake myself free seems impossible.

I am not making this I am failing.  It is like I need a friend to come along and work beside me to get stuff done.  To give me the encouragement to keep going.  This friend does not seem to exist.  If he does, I wouldn't ask for fear of taking his time from more important things.  I don't have any real friends to speak of.  I had a friend or two before.  But I didn't know what I had and didn't cultivate that friendship.

More Self Hate

So I am just a piece of excrement unceremoniously extruded from a dog's anus.  I am all grown up and now I am growing old.  When I was young, I thought I was some hot shit.  I have now come to realize that I am nothing more than a steaming pile.

There was a company "thing" recently (typical this time of year.)  No one seemed to want to talk to me.  Yes I was late and all the tables were taken.  No one with an excuse to do something else would acknowledge me.  I wasn't totally ignored when I broke into a couple of conversations.  It was telling though when shortly after breaking into a conversation with two other people, they both decided they needed to get something to eat, leaving me standing alone.

Something weird is going on at church.  About one per meeting, someone is speaks to me.  Not engaging in conversations but at least they say something.  I can't tell if this is a change in their attitude fundamentally or if it is because my kid started coming to the meetings with me. Everyone used to like my kid.  But once my kid was kicked out for breaking the rules then people stopped talking to me as well.  That doesn't totally explain it though.  My kid was coming with me to church for several weeks.  That all went to crap though. what worries me about the current situation is that I really believe it will stop soon enough.  It always has in the past.  This never lasts.

I have begun to really loathe my situation, who I am, what hangs over me.  I just want this to be over, but it won't end.  And when the end does come it will be slow and painful and embarrassing and humiliating.  I just can't get up, can't climb out, can't move hardly at all.  And when God finds me in that position he is going to know that I really could have done better and to the best of my ability to understand his expectations and the consequences of their failure, he will kill me.