gankylosaurus

So being here at my dad's place is kinda like being on a writer's retreat. Only writer's retreats are largely bullshit from my understanding. Sure, you get to hang around with other writers and you all have times when you write and there's writing group sessions and you can talk about your writing with other people and that's all good, but it's really just an expensive way to force yourself to sit down in the chair and write. You can do that anyway, for free. But I totally get the appeal, don't get me wrong there. Back when my fiancee had the potential of getting a job where we'd be living in a cabin in the woods of Oregon, I fantasized about how I could sit there in the woods with my dog and a cup of coffee writing away. Pulling a Thoreau, as it were, except with electricity. I constantly think about the idea that if I were to just be forced somewhere without games and without a fast Internet connection, I'd get a lot more done. In other words, I kinda want someone to come along and take all my distractions from me. But that doesn't exactly convey a sense of responsibility. That's putting the hard part on someone else's shoulders. It's me who has to be responsible and I can only be accountable to myself there. Still, the fact I don't have my PC or game consoles here has actually helped a lot. I read some this morning, watched a little Youtube, then decided it was time to write. I pulled up my notes and decided not to stop until I was done with the chapter I was working on. I didn't pay attention to how long it took, but I wrote 1700 words and the chapter's done. And the next chapter is one I've been looking forward to writing. Although past experience reminds me that I need to be careful with this chapter... since I tend to fuck up chapters I'm excited to write. They always seem cool in my head and then don't work right on paper. Still, I think I have a good plan for this next bit, which I may or may not write today. And I also created a spreadsheet not unlike the one I made for NaNoWriMo for this project. My deadline is February 29 with an additional 40,000 words written (including today's writing). So, the way it comes out on the spreadsheet, I only have to write about 1,000 words a day. It's helpful to be able to see just how doable this is. However, today was an easy day. It was a day off, and I'm at my dad's place, which is pretty easy to keep clean. I had no other obligations whatsoever. Tomorrow I'm working 9-5, which is going to be the greater challenge. I'll have to push through nevertheless.

Today begins at least a brief, involuntary period of not gaming. My dad asked me to house-sit for him for the next week, so that's where I am right now. He's got a dog that needs to be looked after while he's out of town. At first I'd thought about just offering to bring his dog to my place, but I have a small apartment and that dog is freaking huge. Plus, having to walk him on a leash does not sound fun. So I brought my own dog over to his house where there's a fenced-in yard. I'm trying to use this as an opportunity to write and read a little more. Maybe I'll get back into that mode again while I'm here. I don't have my desktop or game consoles, so my only options are mobile games and online flash games. I still have that end-of-February deadline for draft II of my novel, so I definitely need to get back to that. I read a bit already, but now I'm tired. Probably because I went to bed at 2 AM and got up around 8. May just take a nap and then pull out my writing stuff.

This post reminded me of something - that I used to have a 'to-do' list of games in my head, games that I wanted to play. And when I play games, I usually like to beat them, or they feel unfinished. It's so great to not have that anymore. I mean, I have it, it's just books now instead I used to have a bucket list of games. They were the games on my shelf or in my Steam Library that I just had to beat to feel satisfied. Eventually I came to terms with the fact that there may be a reason I haven't beaten them: I just wasn't that enthusiastic about them. I wanted to beat them because I wanted to beat them, not because I wanted to have fun. That was the issue. When I came to terms with that, I sold all of the games I had hard copies of and made $300. But (and I'm not trying to lure anyone away from GQ here) sometimes a game can have a satisfying story that makes me want to play to experience the story. That's what's happening with this game now, and it's getting to the point where there's one aspect of the story I want to get through and then I'll be happy. Whether it takes until the end of the week or the end of the month, I'll be happy so long as I've got that off my mind, since it's a continuation of a story I played long ago. It's coming along pretty quickly, so I'm sure I'll be back in full-swing, soon. Then I think I may change all my passwords to something random and email them to my fiancee so I won't be tempted for a while. Also, there have been books that I've had the same "must finish" drive as well. I've learned to quit the books I wasn't getting much out of haha. I appreciate the support Cam. I actually did have something on my mind, something I've struggled with for a long time. Which comes first: success or happiness? Some people will tell you that as long as you're happy, you'll achieve success. Others say you have to work hard and be successful before you can be truly happy. But this kind of comes off as a "you have to spend money to make money" statement. The difference is, you can't ask for a loan on happiness or success. I get that it all starts in the mind. You have to be positive and work through the worst parts, because the challenge is just part of it. But damn is it hard to really come to terms with this. Not that I'm unhappy. Not generally anyway. Just with certain areas of my life. And as much as I can say those areas of my life are holding me back, I know it's just an excuse. There are a couple areas of my life I still have control of, though, so maybe I have to start there. Then I need to be more proactive about the other areas. I feel like this was supposed to be a more complete thought but to be honest I'm really tired. Just remembered I've been up since four in the morning. That'll do it.

I swam today. It wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be. The fact that I can't listen to a book or anything while I'm in the water didn't really occur to me when I realized how much time was passing without me really noticing. I also took to heart something you mentioned, Cam. I decided that exercising was something I needed to do, so I did it. And I made sure I did it before the swim team came in so I couldn't embarrass myself. At least one of the other lifeguards said I have good form. Anyway, hate to do this to you guys again, but I'm kinda off the bandwagon once more. I'll probably be off of here for the next month because I don't want to take away from the spirit of the challenge here. I dropped fifteen bucks on an MMO once again and I'd like to see the month out. It's not so bad really. I do this about once a year, and then the urge goes away after I've gotten it out of my system. Plus, I have a pretty good plan now, I think. I'm working on spreadsheets for my budget and my daily goals. The everyday priority things have to be done before I can play. That is, I have to work out, write, and make sure the apartment is clean first. Any one of those not met, and I'd better run to get it done before I boot up the computer. I'll be back, maybe sooner than later.

Tom, Cam, thanks for your support. We've been back from the hospital since about 3PM yesterday. She's at work now. I admit that I have trouble deciding whether I should feel more guilty that I wanted to leave the hospital because I was there for so long in an upright chair (and hence couldn't sleep) or upset that when I did try to leave to get some (I think well deserved) rest, she started crying, which made me feel like shit, so I stayed a while longer. On the one hand, I know that she was stuck there, and that sucked for her. She needed my support. I understand that. On the other hand, she had a bed. She said the bed was uncomfortable, but at least it was a freaking bed. And she was in and out of sleep a lot, which was ultimately why I left after one of her morphine doses. I told her I was leaving, don't worry, and she understood. I considered asking if I could pull the other bed closer so I could sleep next to her and we could watch Netflix or something, but I decided not to for two reasons. First, if someone had come in and needed the bed, we would have had to rearrange everything; second, my dog had only gone out once, and had been home alone the rest of the time. In fact, I found myself surprisingly calm when I came home and found that the dog had chewed up boxes from Panera. Not that I ever really get angry at her. It's our fault, usually, and I know how to train dogs. You don't hurt them when they do something wrong, nor do you rub their nose in it. They don't understand the stimulus-response correlation of "got into the trash" > "got hit." Instead, they understand it as "master came home" > "got hit." This has been an off-topic PSA about why you shouldn't hit your dog. Fucker. (The "fucker" part is thrown in for people who abuse animals. Seriously, fuck you.) But really, it's not off-topic from why I came here to post. I used to have some real anger issues. They're mostly linked to anxiety I think, but whatever it is, I can get scary sometimes and I regret every lapse. No, I've never hit anyone outside of sparring with friends and that one time that I *ahem* overindulged at a party. But I do get angry, and I hit things. Yet as I was sitting here, upset with myself for all of today's lapses (gaming, porn, getting tipsy by three), I envisioned as much as felt myself balling my fist and slamming it into the mini-fridge next to me. I didn't do it. It's not the only time I've felt such urges and held them back. One of the first times the impulse had come to me when I was fifteen I punched a hole in the drywall. Didn't help that it was the day some people were coming to look at the home for some reason. I was lucky that my mom and her boyfriend were able to just cover it with a picture. Since then, I haven't punched any holes in any walls, but I have hurt myself. Punching cinderblocks was probably the dumbest of them, since those scars lasted a good long while, and it was embarrassing whenever anyone asked where I'd cut my knuckles. Sort of a "last straw" was when I'd come home from the bar (after, I assume, an upsetting night - I really don't remember) and I slammed my head against a wall a few times. I ended up lying on the floor crying. My dog curled up next to me. Shit I'm getting teary just thinking about that night, even though I don't remember anything about it. That was when I truly understand the bond between Man and Man's Best Friend. The only thing I really remember is that I was feeling particularly suicidal that night, and Melody was the reason those thoughts stopped cold. Actually, I just remembered I've written about this experience before and, correction, I did punch one other wall-hole. The point is, I've learned to control my anger for the most part. There was something in particular that got me to throw my computer and punch the headboard once (the headboard and laptop (which I'm writing on right now) were fine; my knuckles on the other hand...) but other than that, I can contain my anger. I used to think that because I was such an anxiety case that I needed to not bottle things. I needed to deal with things as they came along. As things came to bug me and I suppressed them, they went into a pressure-sealed bottle. And as that kept happening, whoever issued the final bit of pressure for the cap to blow off (let's be honest, the vast majority of the time it was my mom) ended up bearing all that rage all at once. Like, whatever had ticked me off wouldn't even be that bad. I'd just go off on it, with the force of everything that had pissed me off from before making me even angrier and more irrational. So I decided to deal with things as they came. Not in an aggressive fashion. I just wanted to nip it in the bud, as they say. Stop it from becoming an issue. It was an effective strategy. So, anger issues mostly resolved. To be honest, my fiance doesn't really make this situation any better or worse. It's a different kind of struggle now, because she gets upset when I mention that she left the fridge cracked or something, and it makes me wary of nipping things in the bud. May be something I should talk about with her directly. (I'm considering asking her to read this journal, just for insight.) I realize this all seems kind of random, probably. I promise, I'm always getting to a point eventually. And that point is... I don't understand why I can't transfer the same kind of self-control to other areas. Maybe the challenge itself is the reason. Maybe "I'm seven days into a ninety day reboot and fuck it I'ma go play a game and then start over again," is too easy a conclusion to reach. Same thing with pornfree. I got to four days before today. I'm usually impressed when I make it to day two. My record was 35. My second-best was 34. Today was a waste. I finished a very short book and then killed time with a video game. Then it was onto the porn. Then I felt bad and decided to try to write. I was a little drunk though, which made me a little tired and unfocused, unusual from how it affects me, and I only ended up writing some short notes for upcoming parts of the story and just under 1,000 words of a chapter. I mean, it's not nothing, and the notes are certainly helpful, but I know I could have done so much more if I'd been truly up for it. And that was why I wanted to punch my fridge. I've been home alone for nine hours now. I cleaned up a little bit, wrote 1,000 words and... what else? There's nothing else to show for it. That's an hour and a half of work right there. Where did the rest of the time go? Where has all my focus gone? I need more self-control. That's the real answer. I still don't even know if I'm going to make gaming just a weekend thing or if I should go through with the 90 day reboot. I want to do the reboot for sure, but I also really want to beat this one game I'm about a third (if that) of the way through. It's sort of like my (hypothetical) last cigarette, though. I can say it's the last one and then I'm quitting, but then I always end up reconsidering for some reason or another. Mostly bullshit. As for drinking... I don't have any problem with it, but I realize that I may be on a bad road. I used to think drinking was really stupid because I preferred the idea of being in total control of my mind at all times. Then I tried it and realized I didn't want to be in control all the time. I still think that's a perfectly healthy idea, but I think it's gotten out of hand. It can't be as binary as abstinence and indulgence. There has to be a balance. I'm probably going to be looking for that balance for a while. For now, I just want to rest and figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life. I used to have such a good system. I got things done in the morning and got to have fun in the evening. I need to bring that back, probably. Okay, this is probably really long now. I'm out of cohesive thoughts anyway (which is good - it means everything's off my mind) so I'll just end it here. Thanks for reading.

So this is the second time today I've been home from the hospital. My fiance was having severe stomach pain last night, so around 2 in the morning I took her to the ER. I'm actually really glad it's less than a five minute drive. At first I thought we'd only be there a few hours. What do I know, though? I don't go to the doctor for anything less than a broken bone (and I've never broken a bone). By 7 in the morning, they were telling us they were going to observe her for 23 hours. I was supposed to work 9 to 3, and I asked someone to help cover me at least for the morning. Ended up getting out of my whole shift. I brought my fiance some things and made sure she was comfortable and came home to rest. So I've only had about 3 hours of sleep today. If even that. I went back and we watched some Hulu and Netflix, her on the bed and me fucking my back up in a crappy chair. They still don't know what's wrong with her. I could tell even the surgeon was perplexed by her scans, mainly because of some extensive surgeries she had when she was 13. Now I'm home, and I just want to relax. I'm going back to the hospital around 7 or 8 tomorrow. Hopefully she'll be able to leave then. I mean, if the pain goes away, she should be able to leave. Just hoping this isn't going to turn out to be something really serious. They've already talked about doing an endoscopy on her stomach. Time will tell.

Well done! Enjoy your rewards! What are you reading? Yesterday I finished Silence of the Lambs. I mainly read it because of a book called The Story Grid, which is an in-depth analysis of what makes a good book work. The guy's main examples came from SotL which he totally analyzed and made charts for. So after reading The Story Grid, I figured I should read SotL and then go back to SG again afterward. Today I'm reading Star Wars: Before the Awakening. Mainly because I read some things about direct ties from it being in the new movie. It's short, so I'll probably have it finished today. Oh, I should mention another series I've been listening to on audiobook. The series is called Magic 2.0, and it's one of the best audiobook experiences I've ever had. Found it on Audible. The first is called Off to be the Wizard. It's about a guy who discovers that life is a computer program and after getting in trouble for messing with the program, he escapes to the middle ages to pretend he's a wizard, only to discover that he's not the first to discover the file that controls life itself. It's absolutely hilarious. I listen to it when I clean and work out, and it actually gets me in the mood to keep doing those things just so I can keep listening. The narrator, Luke Daniels, is amazing at doing a broad range of voices, from a geeky 20-something guy, to a grandiose wizard, to even some convincing female voices. Seriously, check it out if you like listening to things while you work (or you want to try it).

Almost got everything back to zero today. It's as close as it's going to get for now. I did the dishes, folded the laundry, made the bed, and cleaned the bathroom. Now all I want to do is have a beer and read a book. I should probably go fill out this application first. But I just remembered my phone contract expires tomorrow and I don't have a new phone yet. So I don't have a phone number to give them. Work is really getting to me now. The past month has been rife with miscommunication, lack of communication at all, spats between supervisors that I'm in the middle of (against my will), totally inconsistent policies, corrections, and punishments, and absolutely nothing to improve anything. I'd call it a sinking ship, but it's staying stubbornly afloat, and just getting shittier by the day. So, beer and a book it is. I finished a book today, too. Now I'm two books into my 42 book challenge this year. The number 42 chosen because The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has been on my shelf for well over a year now and I've yet to get around to it.

Honestly, no. And not because I'm scared, but because of the other two reasons. It really is a pain in the ass of a drive, going into downtown Cleveland, often having to deal with rush hour traffic. Plus, that area makes me really uncomfortable in general. Also, since my girlfriend has been working there, she told me I probably wouldn't have liked it. The servers get up on the tables and dance along to the music depending on what's playing. It's more of a restaurant than a bar, and I kinda like the bar atmosphere better. For a much more minor reason, we also don't want to work together anymore. We met at work, and only recently have we stopped being coworkers (after over a year of dating). Not that we don't enjoy working together. We just like to have our own domains, and neither of us likes to feel obligated to cover for the other one at work when one of us can't come in.

Hey, Cam, I've been trying. Mainly just doing it when I have a few minutes. Like a break at work, or when my girlfriend goes to move her car. So today... Pissed off, tired, annoyed, etc. I'm at work currently, and I already have two applications up on my computer. Mostly, I'm tired of being taken advantage of. The city doesn't want to give us benefits so they won't let us work more than 29 hours a week. For the high schoolers, that's fine. But I'm currently out of college and I have an apartment and bills and groceries and so on. Plus I'm a supervisor down here in the aquatics division, but I and the other head guard don't count as managers. So no full-time hours, no benefits, no overtime. Plus, if we go over 29 hours, they make us write our hours on a separate sheet so that they can relocate the excess to a different week. That's illegal. It's called time card fraud and I don't like being complicit in it. My girlfriend knows someone to report it to and she's considering saying something to him. He used to be a supreme court clerk so he knows his way around the law. If I were made a manager, I would take my job more seriously as well. The biggest issue is that it's not necessarily my boss or even her boss. I'm pretty sure it's either the city council or the mayor. I think I read recently the opinion that you should do something that scares you. Don't just stay with something because it's comfortable. I've been a lifeguard for over a decade, so I think I qualify as sticking with it out of comfort. Anyway, it's driven me to download these applications. One of them is to be a bartender, something I always thought could be fun. My girlfriend got a job at a restaurant a couple months ago, actually, and she sometimes makes in one day what I make in a paycheck for two weeks. I was offered the same job she got but turned it down for three reasons: The distance, the location, and I was scared. I'm not going to go apply at that same place. There's something nearby that I want to go for, and their website seems pretty inviting to new employees. My truck doesn't handle snow well, so having something close by will be nice. If I get it, of course. I know this whole thing has nothing to do with game quitting. Rather, it's just one of the other changes I've wanted to make for a while. I'm not quite miserable where I am. I'm just stuck.

With those things you feel like you have to do, if you don't like them, and you've tried them for months without establishing a habit, you should probably pick other things to do. This might require coming up with your goal. Something to strive toward is usually a pretty good motivator. I can't tell you what your goal should be. Mine is to get a fiction book published. One thing I realized recently was that I needed to drop the things I was doing that were totally irrelevant, like learning to code. Maybe you need that kind of treatment. Also, I've tried meditation, and I couldn't get into it either. I tried to tell myself it made me feel better, but meh. I don't know. If it's not working, then maybe it's just not for you.

I guess this is day 3. Funny how it feels like it's been longer. I ended up doing something that I'd thought of for a long time, but never got around to. I went ahead and created rules for myself, a document I can read every morning or anytime I'm bored/having cravings. I'll probably change it over time, because I suspect I've forgotten some things. Other than that, today's already been a weird day. Woke up with indigestion. Took some Pepto Bismol (cherry flavored - who the hell likes cherry flavored?) and went back to bed. Woke up with my shoulder hurting and my leg starting to cramp up. Plus it's snowing now, and I've got work training to go to today. I've skipped too many to justify skipping another. Hoping the boss sends us a message cancelling it because of the sudden heavy snow. Already been reading this morning. Once I wake up a little more I'll grab a shower and then go write for a bit. Hoping to combat all the negativity with a good writing day at the very least. Just sucks that I took so much time off from this project that I kinda forgot where I was going with it in the next part. I'll figure it out in time, I'm sure. As I've said before, it's easier to edit something than nothing.

Hey, Shady. Looks like you and I (re-)committed to quitting games on the same day. I'll be watching you to make sure you don't slip up It's just dawned on me that quitting gaming is kind of a game in itself. It has its own rewards (though they aren't immediately apparent) and every day there's a new challenge. Even if that challenge is the same as it was the day before. Mainly thought of this because of... So yeah, we're here for you, man. Let us know if you're ever at a loss for what to do. I know firsthand that the worst thing to be is bored. Oh, and make sure you're replacing gaming with a better habit. Don't just end up using the Internet more with all your free time.

I don't think I ever dreamed about playing a game even when I went 70 days without gaming. That's pretty wild. Though I guess if I did, I might not notice, since (ironically) I'm working on the second draft of a novel about a fictitious MMO. Oddly that doesn't give me cravings... Oh, and @ShadyCB, I believe what you're thinking of is lucid dreaming. I have a buddy who's read about it and I think tried to initiate it. Now that would be interesting to combine with a dream about games.

Hey, man, being vulnerable was one of my goals with my own journal. I started it off totally anonymous and slowly started to open up. And hey, you can see my real (if three years younger) face now! I totally get where you're coming from. On my regular blog, I often write things or think of writing things that I just can't hit Publish on. And if I do, sometimes I end up making them private after I get worried about what others might think. Hell, I have some politically-charged blog posts in my portfolio on that website that I'm self-conscious of people seeing. Though I think that's because I was brought up by someone who's on the opposite side of the political spectrum from me and she only recently became aware of that fact. Maybe this can be a "safe place" of sorts for you, like it is for me. I feel welcome here, and I don't mind being more open here now. Some things I still keep private for personal reasons, but I'm not quite so worried about people disagreeing with me. I know a lot of us probably got here from Reddit, the greatest source of contrarianism I've ever been a part of (and the reason I don't post there often), but here, everyone's on the same page. Congrats on staying strong and getting this far. -David

Hey, Laney. Thanks for stopping by! I definitely should start scheduling a time to write. Really just wish I had a more consistent schedule. People at work need to stop taking away my morning hours so I can write after work when my girlfriend's at work *shakes fist.* She definitely does display gratitude for my patience, even if I'm not always that patient. That probably sounds bad. We're happy, I promise. Anyway, I ended up banging out a post for today on a whim. Something prompted by my decision to stop learning to program today, and just generally inspired by my inclination toward picking up way too many hobbies. I'm going to go ahead and get off the Internet for a little while. I want to go through and read everyone else's journals, but there are things to do around here. I promise, one of these days I'll go through and read more daily journals. You guys are awesome. Change Requires Loss A long time ago, on my public blog, I started writing a blog post titled "Course Corrections for a Simpler Life." The other day, the tentative title of my blog here was "To Simplify (is not Simple)." By the end of that post I realized I'd gone way off topic and decided I'd shelve that title for a more relevant post. But it reminded me of the other post, which I just looked at. It was talking about how I was trying to improve myself from the ground up, but one thing at a time. So not really a bottom-to-top change. More like a lateral change, where the lateral movements ended up on the positive end, but the entire time, my life didn't become any bigger or smaller. I envision it like a Rubik's Cube: You can turn it and change it constantly, but it still has exactly the same number of squares on each side. Maybe that image doesn't work for you. The point is, I wasn't just quitting a bunch of things and then rebuilding myself. I wasn't "rebooting" anything. I was swapping out habits. Instead of spending an hour each morning on the computer browsing a bunch of bullshit, I was going for a run. At the time I was writing that post (oh god, I just looked, and this was last edited in April) I was running three times a week and I'd started reading a lot more. I was planning on doing more resistance workouts as well. The main point of the whole thing (I think?) was that I was putzing around when it came to working writing into my plan. I also had written this metaphor which made me cringe-laugh just a moment ago: But when I was re-reading this and thinking of what I had intended my previous post to be about, I have to wonder what the hell I was thinking about when I was talking about a "simpler life." I was taking a cop-out. I was only trying a little bit to fix things, at my own pace, comfortably. I wasn't going to allow any pain into my life. I admit, it was working. But I was still able to look a week or two back in the past and return to my old habits. Today, I decided to quit learning to program. I'd been trying off and on to do it, but it's not going to help me in any way. I don't need it, and I understand enough HTML and CSS to do any little fixes to my website if it needs it. This echoes other endeavors I've made in the past, like learning to draw, which grew into a desire to turn one of my favorite video games into a graphic novel. Eventually, I always realize that it's not as important to me as writing, and then I quit. Not in a bad way, mind you. I don't see it as "giving up." I see it as realizing that I should continue to further develop skills I already have. It's also why it was annoying to read this from that old unpublished post: Obviously, the approach I tried eight months ago didn't work. So maybe it's time for a different one. One that might hurt. Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art, tells of a story of picking apples. To paraphrase, there were these apples that were thorny when they were ripe, and they hurt to pick, especially when there was frost on them in the early morning. Pressfield turned to one of the fastest apple-pickers he worked with and asked him how he picked them so quick. The other man smiled and said, "With great pain." The people working on that farm were essentially homeless, doing what they could to get by, even if it hurt. Sometimes it hurts to do what you have to do. Sometimes it has to hurt. I don't think there is any positive change that can happen without loss. Which is why I have a new list of priorities: A happy, healthy relationship.A clean home.Staying in shape.Writing.A healthy state of mind.Note that these are in no particular order (except for the first one). The point is, those things above are the only things that need to be of concern to me from now on. If something I want to do doesn't comply with or help one of these items in some way, I simply should not do it. If I'm bored, I can look to this list to see what I haven't done and what I can do to fix that. Learning to code (or draw) seemed like a positive thing at the time, but it was really just another distraction. The plan now is to get everything down to bare bones. Work from the ground up. If I were a blank slate, what would I want to become? I think I have to give up a lot of comfort to slip into that new skin, but in the end, I think it will be for the better. Oh, and I should also probably stay off the damn Internet. It's the sneakiest distraction there ever was. I'll come on when I need to, not because of my Skinner Box-esque need for notifications and updates.

This is exactly it. Especially all the little things she doesn't notice, like leaving the fridge cracked open, not turning lights off, leaving a window open with the AC running. I try to mention these things when they happen, but she acts like she's been attacked when I remind her about these things. Maybe it's in the way I say it. Anyway, it gets to the point where I resort to just not saying anything and just deal with it. But if it becomes a running problem, I can't ignore it. It's all the little things, and I've read a bit about ADD to get it and how I can compensate for it (for instance, I keep up with the bills and ask her for her half) but man. Yeah, sometimes it just plain old sucks. Her new meds already seem like a massive improvement, though. I've got another day off. Just finished up a workout (via Wii Fit Plus - almost feels like cheating :P) and I'm about to head to the store. Gotta get some dishes cleaned up because we both got off late last night and were hungry and I fell asleep on the couch before moving to bed. Planning to have a relaxing rest of the day. Would be a three-day weekend if I didn't have to go to training tomorrow. I've skipped too many to justify skipping another.

Hey, Cam, thanks for a lot of great advice. I didn't quite get everything back to zero, though that was originally the plan. I've been trying not to rely on coffee so much, so I spent my day off not having any caffeine. I got all the dishes done and tidied a few things up here and there, but after that I sat down to watch a short video and have some lunch and ended up falling asleep. On the upside, I have been keeping up with the dishes. The girlfriend and I had a pizza and beer night last night so there wasn't much to clean up, but it really does feel good to have everything out of the sink. We used to be better about it. Hopefully we can both make this adjustment. (Also, we realized that it's mainly when we make burgers that we end up with a backlog of dishes. We're going to try to do dishes while cooking next time.) I definitely see the wisdom in reversing the priorities of things I need/want to do. This is a change I need to make. But there are some things that seem difficult to really schedule this way. Like, I don't like setting time requirements for writing. I just need to get through my outline and then I'm satisfied. But I feel like I need to at least schedule a time when all I'm doing is writing. And I decided to try a subscription at Code Academy, but I don't know how long I should work on that each day. To be honest, it's fun, so it almost feels guilty to learn programming for hours at a time lol. I may have to set a time limit on that (or a number of lessons to complete, possibly rounding up or down to my time limit). I certainly have my own completion list. They mainly consist of finishing the second draft of this novel and registering my vehicle in this state. My plates are really expired and I'm convinced a cop almost pulled me over the other day but lost interest. Cops don't skip around the car behind you just to make a right turn (incidentally, that turn goes toward the police station, and they'd originally been about to take the right turn before that which also goes to the station). Long story short: I need to update my registration. Can't do it today and I'm not sure I can do it over the weekend. If I can (ie. if the BMV is open) I'll do it tomorrow. If not, I'll do it Monday. But tomorrow I'm definitely going to make a more concerted effort to get back to zero. I've done it before and it made me feel great. It's hard to tell where I went wrong. Oh, and I'm happy to report that my girlfriend is on a new alternative to Adderall and we both slept through the night last night. I feel so much better today (if not completely caught up on sleep).

Clutter Okay, scratch the last post. Today is the start of my 90-day reboot. After reflecting a lot about what my problem actually is with quitting gaming to focus on writing and losing weight and just general self-improvement, I've realized that I'm just overwhelmed. I look around the apartment and see my mental to-do list pile up, get overwhelmed and say screw it, I'ma play a video game. Or watch youtube for hours on end. Or do other, less innocuous things. Then at the end of the day, I'm disappointed in how little I got done. Even as I write this I get the feeling I've written the same words multiple times before in this journal. But it goes beyond disappointment in myself. It's started to affect my relationship. My girlfriend has pretty severe ADD and her Adderall has been directly causing insomnia and that's been causing sleepwalking. The sleepwalking was funny at first, but after two weeks of not getting a full night's sleep (one of which resulted in only a half-hour of uninterrupted sleep) it started to get to me. And I twisted my disappointment in myself into it, and began to blame her for my own failures, without even realizing how unfair and shitty I was being. Truth is, I get a lot of time to myself. I don't use it wisely. And while I still stand by the notion that we don't share chores fairly (lately the consistent setup has been: I cook, do dishes, do laundry; she makes the bed and vacuums) I definitely could be using my free time better. I could be putting my money where my mouth is and using that alone time to get my own personal things done. But I'm still overwhelmed. The other day I thought I was making progress. I folded laundry (which took an hour) before work, and then decided to work out a little. Then I had to leave early for work and the dishes were not done. Literally all of our plates and bowls are in the sink. But I had a shitty day at work, and rather than do anything about it, I just wallowed in my own misery. Those dishes are still there. And when they're there in the sink, they're there on my mind. I think back to the other day when it took an hour to fold laundry. I have no idea how many hours it'll take to get the whole apartment clean. I do know I won't be able to focus on my own personal projects until the place is clean. So in that light, I'm going to have to dedicate my day off to cleaning. If there's time, I can work out. Then if there's still time, I can write. Simple as that. It's just really shitty having all these things in the way, cluttering my space as well as my mind.

Last Hurrah Today marks the beginning of my 90-day reboot. There's a reason I took a while getting back to it, though I can tell you from the start that this reason is going to seem like bullshit. I had a game I needed to beat. A game I'd been trying to beat for more than ten years. And finally, I've slain the dragon! Or, defeated Giygas, however you wanna phrase it. The game was Earthbound. It's a game that always drew me back no matter how many times I started and stopped it. I think the battle system always baffled me, and the unintuitive healing system annoyed me. I died way too often, but despite that, something about it kept me coming back. And now that I've beaten it, and mastered it, I can rest easy, so long as I can resist the fan translation of Mother 3. Maybe after my reboot, Nintendo will have announced an official translation on the eShop. I will say this, anyone who wants to be a game programmer should play Earthbound. It's got the kind of charm and mystery that can only be found in indie games nowadays, and it's already inspired at least two great modern games I can think of off the top of my head. Hell, it's even gotten me thinking of retooling one of my stories into a video game. But that effort's a way off if it'll ever happen. I don't need to focus on learning programming right now. But maybe after a week or so I'll get bored and start learning programming anyway. So anyway. I just wanted to regale you with my story of finally dealing with something that's always been on a back-burner in my mind ever since I first heard of it. I know it's silly, but I feel better now, and happier for having had that experience. But today, it's time to get serious.

Once More, with Feeling I've given up on the idea that I'll quit gaming forever. Partly because I just don't want to. However, since getting back into gaming about three weeks ago, I'm starting to think it might be a good idea to do a full 90-day reboot. I mentioned over on the Game Quitters forum my reason for getting back into gaming. And I've been fairly responsible about it. I usually only play after other things have been done around the house, or maybe even just a break from a long day of cleaning. And I stick to games with story. Not mindless or repetitive games, but games that make me care similarly to the way books or movies make me care. But I haven't written a word of fiction in my novel since NaNoWriMo ended. I blame this on being burned out from the breakneck process, but really I know that I could have taken just a week off and been fine. My biggest issue was not being able to stop and think about what comes next. I just had to write. The part that kills me is that I stopped in the middle of a scene. I've been reading some books on writing by Steven Pressfield lately. Namely, Do the Work! and The War of Art. Both deal with battling against resistance. Not just for writers and artists, but for people trying to diet, or start a business, or just achieve pretty much anything monumental. Just the first few pages of The War of Art were enough to guilt-trip me into realizing that I have to get past my procrastination, that no excuses are real. Resistance comes from within, as Pressfield says, and it is a dire enemy. So, as I've said time and time again, I'm going to stop saying I should do this or that and just do it. Start working out to get this beer gut off (and also curtail the drinking for the same reason). Get back to work on my novel. Finish the blog series I started but won't release on my main blog until it's finished. I'm going to change the theme of this blog, too. I like the simple look of this format, so I'll try to find something similar, but I want to have graphics on the side with like streak counters and maybe even a weight log. I dunno. Maybe I'll just keep that stuff to myself. I'm trying to keep off of the exceptions, too, which I allowed myself a lot of last time. Sometimes when the girlfriend and I are off together, we end up watching hours and hours of TV. I don't like that. So sometimes I just go play a game on the computer or my phone instead. I may still do a little bit of that, but only if it's not feasible for me to take my laptop to the library and get some writing done. Like if it's late, or a holiday, or I've already gotten a lot of writing done that day. First step is planning my workouts. I already have the running part down. The other step, then, is figuring out my other workouts. I kind of want to get back into swimming. But swimming sucks because I can't listen to audiobooks and I'm just stuck thinking to myself about pretty much nothing. It's boring. I may go back to my sit-up, push-up, pull-up routine, alternating back and forth between that and running. I just don't know what I'm going to do when it starts snowing. Fall's been pretty forgiving thus far. Can't wait to see the bullshit Winter brings to make up for it. I need to stick to the goals on my about page which is hidden by this theme in the sidebar. Another reason I should update the theme. So right now I'm 205 pounds. I want to get that down to like 180. And I want to get in better shape. Not ripped, but healthier. And my deadline for this draft of my novel is March 1. I would make it sooner, but holiday season, man. I have some credit card debt, too. Not a whole lot, but enough to worry. Spending less on games (which hasn't been an issue lately) and beer will help a lot. Plus tax return should be soon. That's my main plan now. A very broad plan, but it works for me for now. I'm just debating now if I should go beat the game I've been working on before I go full-swing into this regimen. Might be that I won't quit but rather I'll set times during which I can play and only if chores and writing have been done for the day. One mistake I know I won't be repeating, though, is making reading one of my "chores." Takes the fun out of it, and sometimes I just space out too much if there are other things to be done. It's a leisure activity, not a job.

I feel like I owe you guys an update. I fell off the bandwagon. Near the end of November, as NaNoWriMo was winding down, I downloaded a game a friend had sent to me and beat it in a couple of days. It wasn't a long game, and it was fun, and it gave us something new to talk about. Then I started playing some other games. I went and beat a game I'd been working on for a while, and a game I'd had my eye on for a while went on sale for five bucks on Steam, so I bought that and beat it over a weekend. So clearly, my "reboot period" or whatever has suffered. But taking almost two months off from gaming at least put some things in perspective, or just in new perspectives. For one, I'm a story guy. I don't like MMOs (though I tried very hard to like them back in the day) and I don't like open-ended games like Fallout or Elder Scrolls. In all of those games, I feel like I'm just thrust into a situation and told to go do whatever the hell I want. It's like real life, only I have leave to kill people without repercussions. And maybe it's because those games are like real life to me that I don't like them. I have a hard time already in the real world finding direction. The major difference is that when I find a direction of my own in an open world game, it doesn't actually mean anything to my life. I also absolutely hate League of Legends. A game shouldn't require tens of hours just to learn how to play effectively. If I'm going to spend that much time learning a skill, it better be for a job. Then consider the games I actually do like. Mass Effect, The Walking Dead, Undertale, Zelda. They're all story-driven. Stories I get to act out. Much more active than movies, and much more interactive than books. I can make choices, and the story can be a little different each time I play them. I'm not exactly trying to justify a habit here. Just trying to establish the change in perspective. Now, with video games, I'm sticking only to games that have a story, or offer a good multiplayer social experience (in the same room). I'm staying the hell away from MMOs and the like. And even better, anytime I beat a game, I delete it off of my computer. My Steam catalog will only ever have one game installed at a time. I've already sorted out my games list into Beaten and Want to Beat, and I've hidden the rest of the games. Once a game is beaten, I don't play it again. End of story. Because I realize I was wasting my time with the games that can go on forever without much or any purpose just as much as I was wasting my time playing the same games over and over again. That's the habit I want to defeat, and I think I've got a handle on it now. I read books because I like the stories just as I choose the games I play because I like the stories. If Mass Effect were a book, I would have read it by now. (And yes, I know there are tie-in books, but they kinda suck.) Plus, I'm still writing. I'm about halfway through the second draft of this novel I'm working on, the one I want to try to get published (or get it to a publishable quality) by fall. I have plans to go back to school, and I'm considering starting up a blog that can either make money or become my portfolio to help me get a job writing for a website. I just need to figure out what kind of blog I want to start. So, that's my state of things. Another factor I forgot to point out is that I think I need to deal with one addiction at a time, and porn is the much worse habit. I've at least been able to curtail the gaming thing. In fact, I haven't played any today. Read a book, wrote part of a blog series for my main site, and now I'm here and leaving for work in a few minutes. For those of you looking to quit gaming forever, I wish you the best and all the luck I can give. Godspeed.

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with other blogs, guys. I kinda only log in here when I make a new post, especially in the midst of NaNoWriMo. I'll catch up whenever I have time, but it's been tough enough finding time to write my novel. But speaking of which, I've missed six days of writing so far this month, but on the days I've written, I've gotten at least 2500 words done. The average per day to finish on time is 1,667 words. I'm still not caught up to where I'm supposed to be, but that's okay. As long as I keep up 2500 words per day, I'll be fine. And on my days off, I can get even more done. I ended up getting 4300 words on Sunday, and this weekend I should be able to get about that much done each day. The really ironic thing about this story is that it takes place in a video game. It doesn't make me want to play any games, though, particularly because it revolves around fictitious games and without some of the flavoring, it could be indistinguishable from a fantasy story. But it's not because of the presence of a lot of modern (and futuristic) technologies and characters. Plus, it's more of an action mystery kind of story. The game within the story is just part of the story, kinda like Ready Player One. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and I'm really excited about this draft. Can't wait for it to be finished (although I actually can, because I have to, and because it's worth it).

About a year ago I read Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. It's not as good as Fight Club, but it's got some pretty good concepts in it dealing with mental illness and addiction. The basic premise is that the main character is a sex addict who goes to sex addicts anonymous meetings to pick up chicks. His friend is addicted to masturbation, and this friend does something which is a pretty good metaphor for getting over an addiction. Every day that this character abstained, he grabbed a large rock and carried it across town to his home. Just one rock every day, about the same size. Eventually, when he has enough, he decides to build a structure out of them. Okay, the last part is where the metaphor falls through for my purposes here. But the idea I'm trying to get to is that every day is the same challenge. It doesn't get harder or easier. It's the same every day, one rock, a similar size to the previous one. Because the streak counters over on Reddit are bullshit. Okay, maybe not total bullshit, but they can be detrimental to the spirit of challenges like pornfree, nofap, and even stopgaming. When someone has to reset their counter, they see their day count go all the way down to one, with that mocking little asshole smiley face there just to remind you of your failure. I've seen a bunch of people spread the opinion that the number of days in a row you abstain doesn't matter as long as you're improving in your own personal challenge. For instance, if someone who viewed porn every day curtails it to every other day, or once a week, that's an improvement. Some people recommend keeping a challenge and just putting a mark like a dot or an X on days when you don't abstain. Months with fewer marks were good months, and over time you can see your improvement. Resetting a streak counter is like having to send all those rocks back to the quarry and start all over again. It can defeat you and make you feel shitty about your chances of ever getting better. Some people decide that enough's enough and they quit the challenge altogether just to go back to their old ways again. So, what I'm saying is, I should get a calendar or planner. But they all start in Jan 2016 right now, so maybe I'll wait.

Okay, so, I love my girlfriend to death, but our at-home goals kinda clash sometimes, and I need to come up with a plan for everyone to be happiest. Yesterday was double-up day for NaNoWriMo, and I was going to write the hell out of my story. I'm a bit behind this year (though that's not really a big deal, as I learned last year) so I was hoping to get a leg up while my girlfriend was at work. We have a tiny apartment, so my "work area" is the dining room table, which is right next to the TV. Unfortunately, she had to call in sick to work. Of course, I don't blame her. She can't control it, and I did what I could for her, getting ginger ale and cooking chicken noodle soup and all that. But the TV ended up being on for a loooong time yesterday. Two episodes of America's Next Top Model, three of American Horror Story, one of Scream Queens, the entirety of The Shining, an episode of The Late Show, and there may have been more in there that I forgot. But all told, that list of shows comes out to about seven hours if my math is right. Lucky for me, I have some pretty nice headphones, so when AHS was on (because I don't like the current season) I was able to listen to loud music and hammer out about 2,800 words. I also managed to get some cleaning done and rearrange the bookshelves, which had been bugging me. But if I'd had the alone time I was planning on, I would have tried to get closer to 5,000 words out. It still wouldn't have caught me up, but it would have been a nice boost. And I would have gotten more cleaning done. It's not only when she's sick, though, and this is what I mean about our at-home goals clashing. She's got a job and an internship, and she tends to be at work opposite my shifts, which, while I see her less now, has been nice for getting things done. There's no greater motivator and realizer of problems than sitting around bored off your ass because the apartment's too quiet. I'm beginning to be able to fill the silence/boredom with productive hours. I'm sometimes jealous of people who aren't writers. People who go to work and come home and when they're home, work is over. Many full-time writers lament that so many of their friends think that since they're home all the time, they have nothing but free-time, but writers need to have business hours, too. And for those of us who aren't getting paid (or aren't getting paid very much) for our writing, it can be like working two jobs. Go to work for eight hours and come home, and when we're home work begins again because we have writing projects. Only when those are done can we finally relax. So I'm living with someone for whom home is nothing but home. But for me, it's my office for part of the day. And I can't make her be quiet (and I don't want to force her to do anything just for my sake) so I have to either find ways to work around it or just, like I've said before, go to the library. I don't think the library would be okay with me having a beer while I write, though. I think I have to re-invoke some old rules I had for myself. When I'm home alone, the laptop only comes out when I'm doing actual work, aside from the up to an hour that I give myself to unwind/wake up before getting to work. Honestly, I can spend almost as much time on the Internet as she can watching TV, so I have to curb that habit when I'm home alone. But when the girlfriend is home, I need to do my best to spend time with her. So, home is home when she's home, too; but it's my office when I'm alone. Of course there are limits to this. As long as all my goals and writing are done for the day, the office can go back to being a home again. Especially during the times when she's working until two in the morning.