Having a Life

I haven't been posting as much as I once did. Moaning about how much everything sucks hasn't been as  much of an issue as it used to be, so being here isn't as important. I like to think that now I have a life, as I suggested in my last GOALS post back nearly a year ago.

Since I make those goals, I got a job. Not one that pays enough or uses my abilities enough, but a job nonetheless. I need another job or a better job. This is fact and cannot wait another day to happen. I need it now. I don't think I've made it clear my situation on this blog, but I am very, very poor. I don't want to talk about that, which is another reason I don't post here as often as I would like. Some things, like reviewing books and movies, requires me to see or read them first, and I can't go out to do that as soon as something comes out. I think I may be the only geek left that hasn't seen The Avengers yet. I waiting to see it for free.

I haven't lost weight. I lost some when I first started work, but I regained it when my hours were cut during the off-season. I am stupidly fat, possibly the fattest I have ever been. I refuse to continue to be fat.

I want to keep writing but more importantly I want to make what I have written better so that I might be able to make a profit off of it. My way of looking at hobbies is something I would be happy spending the rest of my life doing. That's why I majored in theatre instead of business. I could write for the rest of my life and I would be happy.

So here we are:

• Get a life
• Get another (better) job
• Become fit
• Exercise
• Lose weight
• Write
• edit an already written work
• write a low budget screenplay

Long overdue GOALS post

So apparently I never recreated my GOALS post for 2011. I can see why, I've been busy living in a new state on the other side of the country that is beautiful and warm all year round and because I've been trying to steer this blog away from me just bitching. 'Cause no one wants to read that.

The previous post I made was Dec 31, 2009 for the year 2010 and here is what I wrote

But this is a traditional time to make GOALS so here it goes.
-Reach my goal weight of 175 lbs. I should be able to do this by the end of March at the earliest, by the end of the year at the latest.
-Get a job in theatre. Obvious. Perhaps I'll be less picky.
-Participate in Script Frenzy [2010]. 100 script pages in the 30 days of April. Like NaNo but with more dialogue.
-Get a home. Directly attached to the job part. Hopeful, very hopeful.

 I should also add this other one I picked up as I  passed the year.

I need to get a life.

 So that is five things on the list.

I haven't lost much weight, but at the moment I am living in my car and eating only two meals a day. If this doesn't cause me to lose weight nothing will.

I currently have a very low paying job in theatre. It's something but at this point I just want work so that I can stop worrying about money.

I did participate and win Script Frenzy in 2010. I also became an ML (local event coordinator) for 2011. I completed Nano 2010 as well. Doing this I discovered that I like writing a lot. I got terrible grades in English when I was in school which discouraged me from telling stories and I am extremely thankful to Nanowrimo for helping me get over years of pessimistic teachers. Overall I have discovered that I enjoy screenwriting better than noveling. I'm probably just more familiar with the format with my college education in theatre.

As posted above, I'm living in my car right now with all my worldly possessions. I would really like a place that I can get comfortable and stay for awhile. Sadly, you need money for that. I'm definitely working hard towards this goal.

For other GOALS I am creating, I want to write another screenplay so that I might be able to get representation. One that doesn't have a metric shit ton of required special effects, because I won't get a shit ton of effects for my first sold script.

• Get a life
• Get a job
• Get a home
• Become physically fit
• Exercise
• Lose weight
• Write more
• Write a novel in November
• Write a low budget screenplay

That makes a very pretty list doesn't it?
-X

That's kind of embaressing

And by 'that' I mean when you look at your blog and realize that you haven't updated it in a month. Nearly a month. Close enough to a month.

In this past month I have been doing 750words.com and am on a 44 day streak. That's a lot of days. I can't believe I've done it, that I was able to think of things to write or that they made sense. As it is I haven't written today and after that one terrifying attempt to blog via that site I am not trying again. Of course today I could write that much without difficulty because it's been so long since my last post.

I started to edit my Nanowrimo 2010. It's hard work and I am often bored of it. Instead I showed my Script Frenzy 2010 to my writing group and got feedback on it. They like it. They say it's marketable. It's so close to salable that I can taste it. I should be working on it more, but as usual I am distracted.

On a similar note Screnzy is rolling around again in April and I am going to be writing the sequel to my first. I always hate the people that talk about writing a sequel before they finish the first, or sell the first, or have actually contemplated the first. They do that on the forums. It's almost as annoying as complaining about not having an idea two months before the event. Now I am one of those people.

I still don't have a job. I am staying with a friend for free, which is nice but I do want to be able to at least assist with some bills after a while. I don't like taking charity. Honestly I am surprised that I am able to be her comfortably as I am.

The only thing I really need to do still is I have to lose some weight. I want to fit back into my clothes and I want to look better, but as happens when I get busy I don't pay attention to Calorie-count. Putting that website on my radar always seems to make me feel like I have too much time that could be spent elsewhere.

Anyway. I just read two books at a rapid pace and am playing a video game I shouldn't have bought and barely runs on my laptop.

In the next day or so I will be updating my GOALS because I realize I haven't. I messed with the numbers the other day but they need a post to go with them.
-X

Poor Use of Physical Education

You never know what conversation will come up when you are with family. For some reason we mentioned the Presidential Fitness Awards from elementary school, possibly from watching my nephew shoving his feet into his mouth.

For those of you who didn’t have a school participating in this program let me give you a run down. Every spring and fall everyone in school was tested in a variety of activities that supposedly demonstrated your fitness in particular areas. There were tests for pull-ups, sit-ups (curl ups now), spiriting, flexibility, and the mile run. If you did all of them at or above the supposed fit level you got a certificate saying so. There was also  National Fitness Awards which were a little bit easier to get.

No one in my family ever got one. My eldest brother was the most athletic of us all and he could never get past the flexibility test for even the National Award. The test was called the v-sit reach and involved sitting on the floor with you feet against a template about a foot and a half apart (probably two feet for an adult) and you had to reach past you feet. National needed only one or two inches but no one in my family could get past their feet.

These tests were the most hated part of the year for just about everyone. Even the kids that could do it didn’t particularly enjoy it. Sure, they got everyone congratulating them on a good job but there were al lot of more fun things that we could be spending time doing.

What really strikes me now as I attempt to better my physical fitness is how poorly they tried to prepare us for the test. It wasn’t like they tested you in the fall and tried to better your scores over the year so that you did better during the spring test. Particularly as you got older you just did the test occasionally and that was that, I mean we continued doing it as we got into middle and high school, only noticeable because one and a while you would be forced to run a mile out of the blue, the only warning coming in winter when they would tell you to remember your sweatshirt the next day.

How hard would it have been to encourage us to actually attempt to exercise in between times? They did send us workout sheet occasionally so we would work out at home, but they never connected it to a reward, never attempted to make it a friendly competition. Maybe it was people scared to upset the children, but I think that they might have gotten me to play along if they had pointed out that I could get a better fitness score.

Maybe this is why we are such an obese nation, instead of trying to make us physically fit they had us play basketball endlessly.

-X

Perfect Health

Everyone wants perfect health, right? I've been "trying" to lose weight  for over a year now with little success. I think I'm doing better in California, but I don't actually have a scale here. Every day I'm stretching. I started during the trip and I can attest that it helped prevent cramps while driving. The muscles in my right leg still hurt for a couple days after but I was driving a lot that week.

You know, I'm trying to write something, so that this blog doesn't get tossed to the wayside, but I don't seem to have anything to say.

I'm happy right now. I can't actually remember being more happy in a long time. The only downer I have is that I don't have the money to do and see some of the attractions here. Of course just being here and seeing what there is too see is enough to tide me over for the time being. The only thing I'm really lacking is someone to talk to.

Hopefully that will change soon.
-X
Regal Entertainment Group Gift Card

May

During April and November I don't think of NaNoWriMo or Script Frenzy as taking up a lot of time, but in both cases there were significant decreases in my blogging. I do this mostly when I'm bored and don't have to sleep for work. Luckily, I still am without a job. Fingers still crossed, sometime this week. Affirmations for me.

Anyway, my nephew was born two days early so we flew out to see him. He's doing what newborns do. Sleep, eat, poop. Something I noticed was that he got cuter after a couple of days, as he was able to grow into his skin. the first pictures he looked like kind of squashy. Three days old, he looked like a baby. A really big one, 8lb 15oz, or as the nurse told my sister-in-law, "you can say he was nine pounds,".

We drove. It sucked. We drove because it's insanely expensive to fly last minute and we would need a car when we got there. At least we wouldn't in an Escalade (or was it a Expedition?) this time. It was a gigantic vehicle that my father rented "just in case we needed to transport people". We didn't.

So, we drove and I had to sit in the back seat of a Tacoma for eight hours. My brother got to be there too because he wimped out on driving himself. We get annoyed with my parents on these trips because at some point they are frozen by a decision. 'Where are we going to eat?', 'What are we going to do for the next couple of hours?'. The eating one always pisses me off because they then get mad at me for stating that we should go to place 'A' or 'B'. We only went to 'the Diner' once this time after I pointed out that we ate there five times the last trip. Meanwhile my mother started to come up with a dozen different interesting restaurants yet she would have happy eating at the 'Diner' multiple times again. She fell in love with the place last year when they were open at midnight, but I think I get sick off of their food (which is why I don't name them).

Where was I going with this anyway? Oh right. I discovered that my abs don't like being squashed. My knees in the Tacoma are about my belly button if I sit straight. Instead I have to tilt out both of my legs, for HOURS. It's like getting into an uncomfortable position for a couple of minutes, for like a picture or something and having to maintain it forever. Whenever we stopped, getting out didn't just feel good, it felt like my legs were getting blood again. They only seat in that car is my father's and he doesn't understand the pain the rest of us go through.

Now I wrote this on Tuesday and completely forgot about it to post so let's hit it now.
-X

How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition), Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food

Better.

Hey, look! I fixed the logo so that it doesn't look stupid. Now the ads stand out too much. Shit.

I've been busy, surprisingly. I haven't even been doing anything. It's kind of cool, in a sad way, that you can do that. I'm waiting anxiously for a response from one of the places that I applied to. I really, really, really want that job. I've already decided that if I don't get it (and to leave myself an out "there are no similar opportunities available") I'm going to take some dinky retail job. I don't want to, I might not even be able to, but I have a great need of money. Couple months and I'll be able to move out, whether or not that is a good or bad thing.

Outside of that, I'm driving for pleasure, because it's better than being cooped up in the house all day long and considering how much time I spend in my house it's amazing that I haven't gone mad. I have that spring urge to go outside and I succumb to that urge at least every other day. Plenty of things I need to do on my computer or in my room, but I don't feel like it. Also, I broke down and did some of it last night.

I'm still exercising, but I'm taking a break from two hundred sit-ups. My body isn't able to repair and/or expand that fast, and I'm not sure how healthy the program really is. At some point you just start hurting yourself through over exercise.

Also going strong on Screnzy. It seems easier than novelling, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I do miss description a bit.

I'm going to sleep proper like tonight.

That's kind of depressing

I am exercising right now. I believe in breaks in between sets. Long breaks, or at least long enough to let my muscle stop bitching. Anyway I set up my computer to tell me what I needed to do today and started with my sit ups and it was stupid hard. I knew I was behind, but this was too hard. So I check the date for my last time - Friday - that means I completely skipped a workout without a thought. Which means today is going to really hurt.

I don't know what it is about two days that makes it the perfect amount of time to wait for your muscles to get better, or why waiting any time over that makes you want to kill yourself. It just does.

What's really bugging me is that I thought I was still on track because I was still sore from the last round, which was a repeat because I had difficultly on the previous round. I really meant to stretch yesterday but now it is too late. This program seems to have a severe difficulty curve. My body us having trouble adjusting to the change in demands. I still shake with the first sit ups, they steady after I warm up, but everyone is extremely difficult. Wasn't it suppose to get easier as you went on?

Last night, I was looking up how to massage myself. I was hoping for suggestions like directional motions, or tips for certain muscles, but all I could find were several very obvious "how to" articles. They literally said things like, "oil hands and rub body". That is not useful. Clearly it's a conspiracy from the masseur union.

Well, I lived through it. Pray for my muscles.
-X

A number of things

So I am starting to write down what I eat in a "food diary". I don't know how long it will be until I get bored of it. For one, I'm doing on the computer, so it won't be nearby for me to write in right after I eat, but it's just a way to make more of my bad days good day in the weight loss game.

Now if I was really nice I would be giving reviews of Shutter Island and Alice in Wonderland, but I don't feel like it. This post seems too important to put in things like that in it. I'm not sure why I think it's important but it is. I just know. In less than one week I will have continued this blog through thick and thin for an entire year. I deserve a cookie, but then I would have to log it in my food diary.

What I would like more than a cookie would be to play all of those awesome videos that keep coming out. I feel very sorry for myself for not getting to play them. And did you know their aren't any emulators for GameCube? Okay I did find some but I couldn't find any games for them, not that I tried very hard. (If you don't know what I talking about it's probably a good thing. Think Napster for video games). Several weeks ago I was walking through the video game section of Walmart and I felt like I was walking up to a drug dealer and asking "Can I just see what you have?". I have a problem. I can switch it on and off, unlike many people who have been known to ruin their lives with gaming.

Now I should be off to do all of the thing I should be doing. How was that for a one hundredth post?
-X

Writing and Exercises

I haven't been posting in week or so because I've suddenly been back logged. It's really weird how it happens, but it seems like time just escapes from your grasp.

I suddenly realized that the first deadline for applications was coming up on Monday and I needed to get the recommendation letters for it and once I had confirmation of them I needed to send in the application itself. That was fun.

As I mentioned before I started to do the two hundred sit ups again and I'm keeping up by giving myself two days of rest instead of one for the first week. Tonight more exercising. I also started playing with free weights. I used one of my physical therapy exercises as an excuse to buy a 5 lb free weight and I started using it to rebuild my arm muscles. I do the same exercises with my left arm as a sort of constant, and my right arm is just really bad and I hope to have improvement when I do it today.

I hope that it is because of that that I haven't reached my goal of 200 lb by the end of February. I started to make some progress, then fell back. I was overeating again too. I do consider maintaining weight a positive note during this. How bad would I be if I wasn't paying attention? Anyway, I have notice a shift in my fat, the muscle aches are lessening, and my pants are fitting better.

Lastly my writing has been going great. I'm still behind, but I have a plan to catch up and have been having great story ideas. Reading Percy Jackson and the Dresden Files most likely helped.

Just a short update because I haven't been around.
-X

Exercise always hurts

I finally lay back down and did some sit-ups again. This was the first time since, September, I think. I wasn't posting about that much here so I don't know when it was.

Bring you all up to speed: I was trying to take the One Hundred Push Ups Challenge, along with the Two Hundred Sit ups, and Two Hundred Squats because if you can do that, you mus be healthy. I actually did fairly well for awhile. I was doing more push ups than ever and I started off with a shocking number of squats (almost too many for the first third of the challenge). I was having trouble staying on schedule since I don't tell any one what I'm trying to do but I was making progress. Slower than I was suppose to, but progress. I got to the two week mark at which point you're suppose to see how many you can do in a row without stopping to chose the difficultly level for the next two weeks. I had already been having new problems with my wrist which finally failed and couldn't hold my weight. So I stopped all three challenges for some reason.

Anyway, today I decided to start the sit ups again since I have been prepping my abs with isometric exercises and I don't think it's helping anymore. Now as far as I can tell, I didn't even post about my first time on here so here that goes.

I hadn't done any exercise in ages not counting the week before when I started the push ups. So I was not expecting to do very well on the start up test. Difficulty two, I wasn't doing "sit ups", I was going to be doing "curl ups", because sit ups can mess up your back. So I start to do these things after looking all over the internet trying to figure how a curl up is done. Basically, you start doing a sit up, but stop just as you get your back off the ground (35 degrees). In other words, you need to do the hard part, if the up starts getting easy you went too far. Now, me being use to doing full sit ups has trouble with this. It doesn't seem that hard, so I start doing a bunch trying to make sure that I was doing it right. Problem - I've now done a bunch right, a bunch too far, and a bunch not far enough, but they all add up. I fall back and every single muscle in my torso - my abdominal muscles all the way to my groin (you forgot they go down that far didn't you?), my pectoral muscles - all froze up. I've had some terrible charley horses in my legs before, I've accidentally allowed all of the blood to drain from my right arm, but this hurt worst. When it happens to a leg you straighten it out to the resting position, the resting position for your chest and abs it standing up and I couldn't use my abs to stand up. Oh, and your lungs move your chest when you breath. I did get up, using a secret technique taught in acting classes.

As you can guess, I survived. Today I did twenty-six sit ups before I decided I was done. I actually was able to pull my laptop over before my body decided, once again, that I over did it. Not anywhere as bad as last time, but they are still clenching a bit with me lying down right now, a good four hours later. I think it's more focused on my obliques this time, which would make sense with the isometric exercises. I was able to a practice round. The challenge trains you by having you do a set, then waiting a minute or so, then doing another set. I actually did enough that it wants me to do fifteen sit ups, rest then do another 10-15 five more times, and I thought it was crazy but I was able to do it.

So I'm at it again! And this time I have it on my calender.
-X

The search for fiber

I have discovered that I do not eat enough fiber.

Okay, that was like the pot calling the kettle 'black'. I knew that I was not getting enough as I don't really eat fruit and rarely eat vegetables. I never thought of myself as being constipated, but well, apparently I have been.

Anyway, I decided to find some fiber-y foods that don't suck. My first plan was pyllium husk, which is a pill of fiber - that's really how I roll, but I guess it is only at health nut stores or possibly in powder that you add to water (which definitely ain't how I roll), and well I couldn't find it and didn't get it.

So then I was wandering around the pseudo-Super Walmart (it's being reconfigured and they don't have meat or produce yet) looking for things that I had heard were high in fiber. Most of the things I glanced at were fairly bad, 1g in most thing and in many even less.

Finally I get back home and check on CalorieCount.com and find that fruits will be my best bet. Of course I can't eat anything because I trying to lose weight and I know have to figure out how to add in a lot of fruit into my diet. Maybe the fiber will help clean me out.

On the healthy type movement note, I half raked the yard today. My father wants me to mow this week and I don't want to be pausing every five minutes to empty a bag of leaves. I really hate the number of leaves this house gets.

Now, to exercise or write?
-X

Distraction

As always happens in October I have gotten the urge to watch horror movies. Unlike every past October, I do not have other things to do to prevent me from watching more than just a few horror movies.

Okay, I really do have more important things to do, but given the choice of looking for a job, watching House of 1000 Corpses, practicing writing for NaNoWriMo, catching up on episodes of Sanctuary, reading Dracula, exercising, keeping my room organized, well you get the idea.

Outside of all of that I've made almost no progress on writing any of my stories and have been terrible on updating Illuminated University. Funnily enough I was reading the NaNoWriMo book and it says never stop work on a draft for more than two days in a row because you will lose track of the story, start reworking the story. I've already done that to IU before, so once I have the time for it I "should" be fine.

I'm actually very well planned out for NaNoWriMo, in fact I'm starting to get worried that I may be too prepared for it. They warn that too much preparation causes you to be bored with the story and unable to write it. Alfred Hitchcock apparently had that problem with everything he did. He hated filming his movies because he already knew exactly what they were going to be like, as if he had watched them a dozen times and could stand them anymore.

I'm going to move my GOAL for eBay back a month. I haven't been around to place anything on the site but I should be able to run with it again.

Now I think I'm going to sleep and get up early to work on some of the stuff I want to do.

-X