Day 79 February 28th (rest of the day)

            The rest of my day, as predicted, sucked…a lot…so the questions are did I make that happen or was it going to happen anyway?  I’m going with it was going to happen anyway, but you’re welcome to your opinions.  I went to the track again tonight and walked my 21 minute mile and my 21 additional minute “cool down” lap (shut up, Jim).  This time there were less hooligans loitering and more overweight women with children on bicycles (the children were on the bicycles, not the overweight women) riding in front of where I was supposed to be walking, but whatever.  I was so tired and sore after this walk I don’t know if I’m going to make it to the track tomorrow.  I could barely walk for the rest of the evening.   My back hurts and other places that I didn’t even know that I had muscles.

            Forget what I said about not going tomorrow, I have to go.  I have to go 21 days in a row or I will quit.  Why 21 days? Because some chick on Oprah one time said that 21 times is what it takes to make something a habit and my wife says it to me all of the time.  I don’t know if 21 days/times means anything at all.  It may just be some arbitrary number this lady pulled out of a unicorn’s butt just to sell a book and be on Oprah (hey, I’m not judging, if I had a unicorn’s butt I would be all over that).

Eric Anderson

P.S. If anyone out there has a spare unicorn let me know.

Day 78-79 February 27th-28th (early morning)

            On my way to work this morning (I had to drive because my wife is having surgery [not real surgery, she’s just getting her tubes tied]) I was unintentionally listening to the local (Dallas/fort worth) Christian music station (the wife listens to it in the car because when she’s listening to the edge and NIN comes on, even though she really wants to rock out like it’s 1996, she changes it because the kids are in the car and they don’t need to hear that) and is this the best that Christian music has to offer us? Really? It’s very…how do you say…bad horrible awful poppy (is that the correct spelling of the word that I intended to use?).  It’s just a thought I had on the way to this place.

            I finally made it to the track last night (the 27^th) and walked around that thing 5 times (four as fast as I could at a pathetic 21 minutes and one as slow as humanly possible without falling down because I felt like I was dying and that last lap might have also taken 21 minutes but I don’t know because I stopped timing).  I hate the track, it is evil, it is there just to taunt and laugh at me along with the 15 or so children (15-17 years old at best) that were loitering around in the field and stands area (I couldn’t actually hear what they were doing because I had headphones in but I’m sure it wasn’t good).  My new shoes did not help me as much as I thought they would and I think they might have even hurt me a little bit.  It seemed like it was hard for me to balance and land every step in the appropriate position and it felt like it was putting undo strain on my ankles. I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll be able to make myself do this more often, but I feel like there will be plenty of good excuses not to in the near future.

            I wasn’t super hungry today; I forced myself to eat raw broccoli, tomatoes, and celery even though I have grown to hate those things.  I did eat crackers last night but that was only because I went to the track and a promise is a promise.  I feel pretty tired this morning and also annoyed, let’s see how this day goes.

Eric Anderson

P.S. I didn’t take my blood pressure medicine last night because I ran out and I didn’t get any more for reasons beyond my control and I’m pretty sure that the universe is conspiring to kill me this morning.  Every single little thing that can go wrong is going wrong and I can tell that today is going to suck…so so so much.

P.P.S. I know that there are better Christian bands than the contemporary crap they play on that station so please don’t get mad.

Day 75-77 February 24th–26th

            Okay, so I’m a bad blogger and I’m a bad goal keeper (a person who keeps their self-imposed or even externally imposed goals not a sports reference [if it could be construed as such]).  Of the four goals I kind of kept the one about blogging at least every other day, except I didn’t blog every other day I just did 3 in a row and stopped (can I get half of a point for that much?).  I didn’t read any chapters (or pages for that matter) of the book I had planned to read.  I didn’t go to the track twice (or once).  I did write two crappy fiction paragraphs, but then I got a headache and stopped.  I thought for sure this would work for me.  I guess I could double the goals this week, but then I wouldn’t do them again and then next week I’d double them again and I’d get overwhelmed and crawl into a hole and cry (what? You don’t have a crying hole? Freak).

            The last few days of this diet have been pretty ordinary and not too difficult (which is why I’m absolutely sure I’m doing it wrong).  I haven’t lost any weight at all (I did weigh myself), but I am still losing inches (more like centimeters [millimeters]) so that’s something (no it isn’t…I need to see that number drop).  Before you remind me that if I were to go the freaking track I would possibly succeed in a more timely manner let me remind you that I know that, but I am dumb.  I should give myself rewards for going to the track.  No more crackers (carbs) until I walk for at least 30 minutes.  I wonder if I’ll be able to stick to that (no I don’t, I know).  Well that wraps of the physical part of this blog.

            Now for the mental (over) analyzation.  I need to read something or play more mind stimulating games or get a pen pal (is that even a thing?).  I don’t want to cut out TV completely or video games or podcasts, but maybe limiting it to a certain amount of time per day would be okay.  I would read during lunch but there is usually like 50 interruptions on my lunch break (everyone I work with is rude and inconsiderate…including me, I’m sure)

Eric Anderson

P.S. I’ve decided to quit telling you what I ate all of the time because it doesn’t ever change.  If there is a major change in the way the diet works I’ll let you know.

P.P.S. Someone just walked into my office eating pretzels and talking to me with their pretzel breathe fumes spraying all over my face (Someone who knows damn well that I haven’t had bread in 77 days) and just popping pretzels in their mouth and crunching and talking and breathing and repeating that whole process over and over and over.  Would it be a sin to punch this person in the face? Even it was a woman? Even if she was like 80 years old?

Day 74 February 23rd

Dear Pen Pal,

            My name is Eric and I have a plethora of non-problems I would like to discuss with you today.  First, I’m extremely overweight which means that I have access to quite a large food supply (also, known as the good ol’ USofA [double cheeseburgers are only a dollar…almost everywhere]).  Second, I hate my job which means that I have a job unlike many many other people.  Third, I have an overall feeling of discontent which means I’m still breathing unlike most people (to paraphrase Louis CK).  Fourth, my laptop has been at fry’s for like 3 weeks now (what are they doing to it?).  Fifth, never mind this was a bad idea…

Eric Anderson

Day 73 February 22nd

            Well I woke up about 47 times last night and most of those times were between an hour before my alarm was set and the time when my alarm was set for.  I had a tremendous amount of focus (enough to write two different blog posts) but not a lot of energy (they were quite short blog posts).  I worked my newly scheduled 10 hour days (down from 12, which is good and bad but ultimately doesn’t matter because I’m going to be working for free when I get those inane phone calls from unmentioned persons I’m obligated to talk to…again for free).  I didn’t read anything except for a super interesting (and short) article about ancient sleep patterns (Here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783 ).  I didn’t write any more fiction, I didn’t go to the track but I did post on this blog so 1 out of 4 is not so…great, but whatever.

            I wonder what is troubling my sleep pattern and I really wonder how people used to wake up after four hours every night without alarm clocks (read the article).  Today was not that bad as far as hunger goes, and as I mentioned earlier I wasn’t as drained as I was yesterday (something else I should look into). 

I’ve noticed recently (this year) about myself that having a mentally stimulating conversation with another person, no matter how short that conversation is it seems to give me more energy and make me at least feel like I could be more productive if I actually used this renewed focus and energy.  At first I thought that it was just because I was talking to my brother (although all of this talking took place through text message, it still counts) and I just missed him (I do miss him and every time we talk I’m inspired to change my life for the better), but then I had a conversation with a different person and it made me want to write more than I usually want to.  These conversations have to be about something that I’m interested in or it won’t work (I don’t think anyway).  Over the years of working mostly with people who don’t speak the same language as me (the ones that do only want to talk about things that don’t interest me at all) I’ve forgotten how important conversation is to me.  So now I have to find a person who I can correspond with (no time for face to face or telephones) who is not annoyed by me and wants to talk about the same things.  Maybe there’s an app for that.

Eric Anderson

P.S. Here’s what I ate on Day 73:

Breakfast and Lunch and snack: the same

Dinner: spaghetti squash spaghetti (sounds weird but it is what it is)

P.P.S. I was always funnier when I had friends and/or English speaking coworkers that were raised in the same decade as me (at least they seemed to think so)

Day 72 February 21st

            Yesterday Today was a weird day.  I woke up with foggy brain after not sleeping very well at all although I’m not sure that was the cause of the foggy brain.  This has been ongoing for over a year so I decided to Google the words foggy and brain and I learned that in means that may brain is inflamed and this could be caused by a whole plethora of different maladies (from stress to tumors).  I’m pretty sure I have them all.  All I know is that I sat down to start one of my goals (writing something…anything) and I wrote two paragraphs that I have entitled “Ordinary Boringness That Was Vomited From Eric’s Foggy Brain”.  After those two short paragraphs I had a giant headache and couldn’t remember why I ever thought that I could be a writer.

            As far as the goal of walking goes, I still have 5 days to go so get off my back world.  I was pretty hungry yesterday today for no apparent reason, it’s not like I did anything.  So, I ate a bunch of seeds and kefir with “mary’s gone crackers” (they are gluten free, but I’m not supposed to eat that many of them on account of all of the carbs) I didn’t read anything today but did manage to play video games for an hour and then watch a couple hours of TV, so that’s progress, right?

This haze that has overtaken my brain is really getting to me, I think I have early onset Alzheimer’s (I think I’ve said that before, that’s probably a symptom), my short term memory has gone to complete crap, but my long term memory is still quite awesome.  My ability to speak properly and remember words is diminishing at an alarming rate. 

I crashed on the couch in the middle of watching TV (don’t tell my wife, I don’t think she noticed).  Why am I so tired?  I don’t know it yet but I couldn’t sleep very well tonight either.

Eric Anderson

P.S. Here’s what I ate on day 72:

Breakfast: Quinoa, Egg, Mozz Cheese, Broccoli, Tomato and EVOO Casserole (A.K.A. Quinoamelet)

Lunch: Millet Bread (I’m almost out of that crap and I will never go back, it’s awful) w/ kefir cheese spread, chicken and tomatoes.  Plain Yogurt w/ stevia and cinnamon (favorite part of my day). Raw almonds and pecans, mozz cheese stick, blueberries and raspberries

Dinner: baked stuffed chicken w/ feta cheese, peppers, butter and broccoli w/ garlic olive oil

Snack: the aforementioned kefir with pumpkin and sunflower seeds (raw) and crackers

Pills: way way way too many

P.P.S. I ate too much today

P.P.P.S. Deep within the fogginess there is something witty that should be written here but I can’t seem to see it right now. 

Day 65-71 February 14th-20th

            Okay, I guess I should apologize…again to the 3 people that read this thing (sorry Charlotte, Valerie and what’s-her-name [you know who you are…or maybe not, I don’t know]) for not ever updating it anymore.  I don’t know why I haven’t done it.  I have not reasonable explanation as I had more energy and felt better than usual all last week (which isn’t to say that I’m at 100% [I still think there’s something pretty bad wrong with me, but I can’t prove it so every night I cross my fingers and hope I wake up in the morning {nights are the worst}]).  What would happen is that I would miss the first day and then I would think about writing but I would say that I have to write the day before and then it all piles up.  I’m not going to go day by day on this thing because mostly they all run together.  Let’s go in sections instead.

Dreams

            I’ve been having weirder and weirder dreams lately, mostly I can’t remember them other than a feeling that something weird happened (no, I’m not going to start a dream journal).  There are two that stand out as being particularly weird or at the very least traumatic.  The first falls into that latter category.  I dreamt that I woke up and my iPhone had deep grooves carved into it and I had no idea how it had happened, then I remembered that I went out drinking the night before (something I’ve never done [I drink alone…in shame {except for this one awkward thanksgiving at my mother’s house…you don’t want to know}]) and I guess me and the group I was with thought it would be fun to carve into our phones.  That dream was stupid, but it scared the crap out of me.  The second is weirder.

            I don’t know why but in my dream I was in charge or responsible for something within my family (my parent’s family) because I was the first born and it was my “birthright” (I don’t even know what that means).  My mom took this responsibility away from me because I had lost “favor” with God or something to that affect.  I don’t know what this responsibility was but she effectively disowned me.  I was quite upset about this and told her that she couldn’t see the kids anymore and my wife looked at me like she thought I was overreacting.  My mom didn’t seem to care that she couldn’t see the kids anymore because she felt like she was doing what God wanted her to do so there’s no way she could be wrong about this decision no matter what the consequences.  Then we left and I woke up.  It was quite disconcerting.  I don’t know if it’s the diet or what but I’ve never remembered so many dreams in my life.

Diet

            I went all week last week without eating any extra carbs.  I ate a bunch of nuts and seeds and whatnot (you know, good fats), but I don’t feel like I’ve lost a single pound.  I haven’t weighed myself, but I just have a feeling like I haven’t lost anything.  I bought some new shoes so now I don’t have an excuse not to go to the track.  I’m growing a little tired with all of the pills I take every day (cleansing is hard), not to mention some of the foods I’ve been eating every day.

Goals 

Here’s a list of my goals this week, hopefully setting a deadline will motivate me to do something:

Go to the track at least twice before next Monday (the 27^th)

Update this blog every day or at least every other day (I’m already bargaining)

Write something fiction (anything…at all…doesn’t matter how long it is…anything)

Read 5 chapters of a book…any book…just do it…that’s a really low number of chapters…come on

            Well, that’s the end of this update

Eric Anderson

P.S. Here’s what I ate all of those days that I didn’t talk to you:

Same things every day that I always eat, plus we ate some more fish and it wasn’t awful (I don’t get me)

P.P.S.  Happy Valentine’s and/or President’s Day(s)