End of the Beginning

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
-Jiddu Krishnamurti

So I've experienced a week post-PCP. It's been interesting. I feel like I have to say that I consciously planned it, but that's something I rarely do. The end of the PCP came, so I just let go and let myself fall. Getting sloppy, careless. Not on purpose or not out of apathy. More like letting go of the controls, sitting back and watching what happens. This past week resembled my an average week of my life. My life through out the past 9 years. Not a long period of time, no, but for someone who has only lived two decades, it really counts. There were a few differences. I definitely ate more and I ate better. Normally my diet would consist of cereal, grilled cheese sandwiches, pasta with butter and cheese, the occasional omelet. Occasionally, I would have these relatively "healthy" tendencies. Basically I'd have a hearty breakfast of eggs, some bacon, fruit, whole grain break, etc. or the occasional fruit for a week or two and then something would happen and I'd lose any little bit of awareness that spurred me into such good habits and the next thing I'd know I'd start to feel like shit again.

But typically, it was just cereal, sandwich, pasta. This past week, I ate more vegetables than I typically would, more fruit, more meat, less carbs.

Also, there was a lovely little cherry atop this week. Last night, Friday, I went out drinking with some friends. In the moment, it was fun. Looking back, it was still pretty fun. Waking up though, I could have done without it. Forget the hangover. I'm not even talking about that shit. There is just something missing.

What I'm saying is that there's something about me that's just not really... here. If you understand that at all. I'm not blaming just the alcohol. I'm blaming the alcohol and the fact that my sleep pattern is messed up. I guess I used to think that If I lost some sleep, I could just "make it up".

"Normally go to bed at 11 and wake up at 7? Didn't get to sleep until 3am? No worries, just wake up at 10 or 11, you'll be fine," Is what I hear/heard. That's not true in the fucking least. Not for me, anyway. Even though I've typically been able to receive 8 hours, it doesn't matter, I'm still a little mentally messed when I wake up.

I've also let loose the reigns of my food supply. Relying on my parents to get food. It's been a sore disappointment. I really don't want to get into that. It's just too frustrating. Which actually brings me to my next point. When I first heard that Patrick thought that not teaching a kid to eat well was child abuse, I thought, "well, I think that's exaggerating a little..." Now that I think about it, it really isn't. Neglect is child-abuse, correct? Well I honestly feel like my parents failed me in this regard. Seriously, there are people in Laos who have better diets than the one I used to have. That's just fucked up.

So, school starts soon. It's time I started regulating myself again. Keep a steady sleep cycle, eat well, exercise daily. I can't function properly without these things. I tried that for 9 years. It didn't work.

Another note on the alcohol. Friday started out with me at work, which I actually enjoyed. Then the thought of getting drunk caused a bit of turmoil for me; the enjoyment I was getting was dependent on my health and the mindfulness I've cultivated of the past 90 days. Getting drunk would shot that all to hell. And while I did enjoy myself last night, there's no competition between the two. I honestly don't care if it makes me a pariah, I cannot afford to continue living like this. If my fellow Americans wish to stew in their own sodium "enriched" lazy incompetence, then that's fine with me.

Ok, I know, maybe it's a bit hypocritical to call others lazy, but I've noticed a slight change in the very core of my personality. It's this work ethic that I never saw before. This determination that was never their. I think about approaching school, and I think, "fuck yes, bring it on, bitch," instead of the typical anxiety and procrastination.

Ok, so, I guess If I ended this post now, It would be slightly negative... Hm... good thing I have this ace up my sleeve.

Now, I don't have a ripped body (yet). I gained 15 pounds over the past three months. I went from 120 lbs to 135 lbs . So, scrawny to slightly less scrawny. Nothing amazing, but still a really good start. My abs are probably nice, but I still have a decent bit of fat on my stomach. If someone wanted to, they could look at this as a failure. It's not, and that person is an idiot for thinking that.

There were two points in this project that I'd consider to be the two highest points. The first one was when I saw no difference between the PCP and my spiritual practice. Typically, when I think of spirituality, It is often tied with mysticism. This leads to a frustrating push-pull, as I try and keep the spirituality but get rid of the bull shi- I mean mysticism. To sum it up, my friend Sam said, "You can think of spirituality as living in the best possible way".

But yeah, I ramble. So to sum up the second peak of this project, I leave you with this quote from the movie Into the Wild:

The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind death stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.

Day 90 post coming soon

I sat down to type it out and nothing happened... I need to figure out what I'm going to say.

89

Today's e-mail was pretty epic. Well, mostly because I've been feeling a bit down about the project lately.

Though, when I say "down", it's not really feeling 'down'. A little disheartened. I've finished the last month with a worsening limp. Not a physical wound, but one of motivation. I'm crossing the finish line worn down. I look at the end and I don't see worry, i don't feel like a fish moving from an aquarium to the ocean. I feel like a plant moving from a pot to a garden. Being able to take control of my own diet, my own exercise - I like it. My fitness will now take on a more organic approach; less regimented.

So, in short, it made me feel better.

Hm... so... apparently math isn't my strong point.....

So we have 5 days instead of 7? Sweet.

And I have a confession to make. This past week has been terrible. I collapsed, and then the week kept kicking me in the ribs.

Oh, also, I didn't eat the last two indulgences, is that bad? My reason for that being that on the day before we received the second "key" (as Sean calls it), I had some Honey Bunches of Oats for my night snack because I ran out of grape nuts. I did this because I was curious how I would feel after I ate it; I used to eat copious amounts of that cereal. It turns out I felt like shit. With that in mind, and reading what everyone else said about their indulgences, I really didn't feel like doing that to myself.

Also, it's been epically hot here. Well, maybe not epically, but hot enough that it plays havoc with my digestive system and sleep.

I feel like I should be pretty down about this, but I find it kind of difficult, which brings me to the good side of this week.

There are a lot of reason why I signed up for the PCP. They culminate in "getting more out of life". Except, what exactly does that mean? Well, it's a little difficult to elucidate. To me, it can be summed up in one instance. I work at a grocery store; the one that most of the elderly people in town go to. This means we call a lot of cabs, and thus have a lot of little-old-ladies waiting for them. The last time I worked there, before my shift ended, there was a woman waiting for one in the lobby of the store. She didn't want to go outside because of the heat, but she couldn't see to well inside the lobby, so see wanted me to stay and look for her. I couldn't because I had my job to do. When my shift ended, she was still there, so I waited with her and talked with her.

That likely wouldn't have happened before, I don't think. I probably would have thought

One time when I was walking to a party, back in march, I stepped off of the side-walk and onto the street. The impact of my foot coming down shook me rather hard. It actually hurt; my head, my joints, my back. Not to be overly dramatic, but I felt like it almost shook me apart, like a skeleton in an episode of Scooby-Doo. Then a few other nights I got high and when you're high you sense things stronger than normal - In this case, pain can be intensified, as can fear and sadness. Believe me, I've experienced them all more than I ever would have liked to - and there were a few nights where I felt exactly how pitiful my physical condition was and just how it affected me. One you feel that you never forget it.

Today I wento buy food. I walked into the store I work and I felt almost no anxiety. I walked away, got a text from my mom, decided to call for a ride, and then waited for her at the high school, which was near by. Normally I sit by the doors, on the concrete where there is shade, but that seemed incredibly unappealing, so I sat under this tree and listened to music and saw the beauty that surrounded me. A fly were landing on me and I didn't mind. I didn't disturb it. I sort of felt like I was melting into nature. It was epic. I felt as if I could have sat there the entire day and been sated.

I feel like these three little snippets of my life illustrate perfectly why I signed up and why I shouldn't be very worried about how pathetic this week has been. Five days, I can do that. I will be difficult, but It is doable.

To everyone: good luck, we're not finished yet.

Ten days?!

Holy shit, can you believe that?

I don't know. Not much to really write about right now.

I did find this video, however:

Too bad I didn't find it before you all went on vacation...

Woo!

I totally fucked up the Diet for this week and didn't even realize it until now!

Ok, well, no. I just ate a little too many carbs and didn't eat fruit for my night snack. This isn't a complete fuck-up, but Jesus, I really need to pay attention...

Anyway. Today was kind of a mess that totally worked out. I woke up to be reminded that I had no toilet paper, so that was an immediate concern. I let my house, and walked to the store. I took the bike path, which passes by the house of this friend of mine, Amanda. She was chilling on her porch and called me over. I hung with her for a little bit. I hadn't seen her since graduation, over a year ago, so that was cool. Then at the store, I saw another friend; he was at the cash-register. I chatted with him for a bit. Went home, mowed the lawn, and then chilled with my friend Tim for a bit.

After all that I felt totally refreshed. My motivation for the Project was actually renewed.

Oh yeah, it was mad funny to see in my comments that Seabass said "I got fucked up" (or something like that). Totally not used to anyone other than my peers saying that.

Anyway, I'm glad my last post was helpful.

Peace out.

The Price of Health

As I type this, I think I am beginning to feel the full weight of the stress induced by loneliness. Tomorrow, I need to get all of my god damn chores out of the way; mowing the lawn, cleaning the kitchen, and then I need to find another human being to interact with.

What am I, anyway? I'm speaking in terms of introversion and extroversion. And I also know that no one reading this can answer that question. It's probably not something that can be pinned down easily, if at all. The analysis, I find, is very tiring, especially at the current moment. All I've noticed is that social interaction has become easier, which is essentially why I started doing this.

Something also worth noting. At around 6 pm today, I was getting really fidgety. Like, crawl-out-of-my-skin fidgety. I have been working out at 7 for a little while now. Make of that what you will.

I am really appreciative of the PCP. I needed this shit. But God knows that once this is all over, I am going out and partying with my friends. I won't get drunk, but I'm going out and hanging out with my friends as much as possible.

Tranquility

(For some reason this didn't publish; this post is for the 13th)

So, I guess you could say that the project, for the most part, has been a source of stress and anxiety for me. I usually say that I can switch my routine on a dime. And that is true. Though it takes me a little longer to get comfortable in the new routine, and the PCP is probably the most extreme change I've had to make.

The problem isn't really that it's difficult. It's more like, I have to do everything myself. I have to make sure I have enough food and I have to cook each meal, all of which are fucking huge. In the old days I could just eat a pop-tart or a bowl of cereal in the morning and for lunch fry up a grill-cheese sandwich or something. Not any more. Three times a day I have to cook a huge meal.

Also, there is the asocial aspect of the PCP. These two things were a slow build for the first two months. The last two weeks, I saw a really bitter, dire side to myself. Now, I'm pretty relaxed about it. There have been plenty of mess ups recently. One is that I think I might have to skip dinner because, for some reason I am not hungry. Actually, I think it might be a bit too late. I think earlier in the project I'd be a little upset over this. Now I just look at the clock and mutter, "hmm... fuck..."

And there's a good side to this. It just means that I can go to bed before 11 for once. I mean, I was earlier in the week. OK, let me elaborate.

For the past month, my sleep was getting exceedingly fucked up. I was waking up at 10 and it was getting worse. So I tried to reset it, and failed. Tried again and succeeded. But then I got into an awesome discussion with my friend about past experiences with weed that I found to be very elucidating. That lasted into the AM, which messed up my sleep even more.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm sort of rolling with the punches and not getting down on my project at all. This is awesome. I used to have a "I need to look cut by the end of the PCP", but now I have a "I am definitely healthier than I was, I can feel it. This is amazing" feeling.

And that's not even how I felt when I went into the PCP; wanting to look all chiseled by the end. I was just looking for good health and stability. Mental and Physical.

This brings me to why I joined the PCP. The moment of realization that I was woefully out of shape was when I was walking to a friend's house, and I was crossing the street. The first step I took off of the curb onto the street. It gave me a headache. It shook me. I can't eve describe to you how it felt, but the blow of my foot hitting the asphalt shook through me and it felt like it was going to tear me to pieces. And then there were the numerous times when I was high that I felt what it was like to be in my own skin on such a visceral level that I couldn't help but shake.

That, my friends, is a sign that you need to put a little meat on your bones.

There are also the mental issues. Nothing serious. Massive amounts of anxiety, insecurity, depression. Just things that make life necessarily hard. Again, while high, I ascertained that If I was healthy and physically fit, then these issues would go away. So far, it seems that I'm right.

Why did I do the PCP? Because I was sick of being my own obstacle. I was sick of my fear and my frailties holding me back from living life. I'm not really sure how life post-PCP will be. Though, I feel as though I have the knowledge and the moxie to take care of myself, construct my own work out routine. Which brings me to another thing. I would look at the six-packs on some guys and thing, "nah, that'll never be me." It wasn't even my usual, "I'll be like that when I get around to working out", it was just plain old, "I can't do it." Now it's, "I am doing this, and I will get those cut abs." I was watching this video:


If you look at the dude's daily workout, it's intense. A year ago I would see that entire video and I would be like, "cool..." Now I watch it intently and think, "Man, If I wanted to, this could be me." You know, If I wanted to.

On Comptetition

Ok, so this is not solely about competition. First thing I want to say is that I totally used my computer almost all day. BUT! I had the self-control to not procrastinate, and the day has gone by rather smoothly. I mean, my workout was really lame, but I think it has to do with the fact that I was dehydrated. I think... I mean, my piss is clear, but I have that fatigued, dry feeling. Still, I had my cake and got to eat it too.

Anyway, I want to post this: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/12/04
It says that loneliness is about as much of a health risk as smoking. Shocking, rather, seeing as how I've quite alone recently. I dunno. I mean, work has an uplifting effect - it's really easy and I get to socialize and it's fun, even if it is really draining. Though I still feel this strain, this taxing feeling. I assumed it was my messed up sleep schedule, and maybe it still is. I mean, I haven't fixed it completely yet, but I'm making great progress. I even had a really vivid and fun dream last night. And yes, I'm going to talk about it. Now, I suppose, I am not sure what else I have to say on loneliness that Radiolab hasn't. I have sparse human contact, and I believe it is affecting me.

So onto the dream! Basically, it was about me trying to have sex with a friend of mine. And we were in a house that seemed to be an amalgamation of many houses that I've been. And a lot of people were in it. My parents, my neighbors, some of my parent's friends, my boss, and some random nerdy guys in their late 20's who were assholes. And they were all distracting. The entire time I was doing random shit, trying to return to my friend to sleep with her. It was really frustrating but awesome, because there was a lot of shit going on and it was kind of hilarious. I didn't get to sleep with her, because right when I was about to, I woke up. Story of my life, right?

Right, now onto competition. As a child, I was very non-competitive, unless it was at videogames. Essentially, I had zero confidence and was only willing to compete at something I knew I was good at, something I couldn't lose at. Now, things are a little different...

I first noticed it when I realized that I had a huge drive to learn French. When I was learning Russian, I started out with every waking moment studying, but only because I enjoyed it. With French, I'm not obsessed. But I'm putting forth a pretty huge effort, and it has to do with one thing.

My Aussie friend challenged me.

That's pretty much it. I said it was easy, she called me an arrogant prick and that I'll soon have my ass handed to be by the sheer scale of the task, and I set out to prove her wrong.

That's pretty much it. Also, at work the other day I challenged my supervisor to an arm-wrestling match. I lost, because he's like a foot taller than me and I guess has awesome genetics because he does nothing and is still stronger than me.

So I challenged him to a rematch. I won, but he definitely threw the match just to get rid of me.

Long story short, I've become more competitive, most likely due to an increase in confidence that has come from an increase in physical security. That's what I reckon and that's what I saw was the sole reason for my anxiety when I was sitting on that couch during those transitional months, from winter to spring.

Also, my pecs are beginning to show. Pretty awesome.

Beating myself up...

for wasting my own time with this trite shit.


Oh, shit. Let me clarify, I don't mean the PCP, I mean sitting on my ass and procrastinating. It's not like I do anything of value on this computer. The only thing of worth that I can currently do on this computer that is not PCP related is improve my grasp over Russian, or obtain a grasp over French. What do I do? I lounge around Facebook and periodically switch between that and Digg.com for quick little hits of dopamine-triggering stimulation. God, I'm like a junkie. It's kind of nauseating. And now I have to choose between dinner or a proper sleeping time. Maybe I could cook up some chicken, so I get the protein, but fuck me sideways. This is just disgraceful.

I don't believe in divine retribution, but there is no way the universe will not punish me for being so slothful.

I'm done with this. Tomorrow, no more. I'm not turning on my computer for anything other than accessing my workout.

Man! What a waste of time!

Oh man! I wish I saw this two months ago! If I had known about this, I never would have joined the PCP!


Er, on second thought, I think I'll stick with the regular thing...

Ok, I have no idea what Patrick would say about what this guy is doing, but as you can see, there are a couple similarities and it's in the same spirit as the PCP. Also, the song is kick ass.
Pistol Squat FTW.

Edit: I just remembered something. I think I heard it on Radiolab; if you're playing tivial pursuit, and you read about soccer hooligans, you will do poorly. If you read about professors, you will do well (to sum it up poorly). So, here are a punch of bad-ass videos that you should all watch before you workout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyuJ3T0sQ88&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1I_agS_RAg&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIjoq68i1HI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q80yumhU-Eo&feature=related

What does a scanner see?

I was watching a bit of "A Scanner Darkly" today. A Good-ass movie that reminds me of days gone by. Watching it now, it occasionally produces this low-level anxiety that years ago would have been all that needed to exist to send me tumbling into a panic attack. Now, it's only uncomfortable. I'm not sure why it does this. Maybe because the convoluted nature of various scenes resonates a little too well, reminding me of situations of inebriation that I've been in where anxiety was the prevailing emotion. An all too common occurrence. If you haven't seen it, here's a clip that I feel encapsulates the movie very well

So many to choose from. Anyway, the nostalgic insanity reminded me of a comment Jeremy posted on my post about why I started and subsequently quit smoking pot. He asked why I quit, which I guess I didn't make clear. I love to talk about my experiences, and I guess I got so wrapped up in my "last high" that I didn't make the point. To put it clearly, the last time was horrifying. Also, I felt like I had to puke the entire time. And that is why I quit: I didn't want to experience that again.

I know I talk about it a lot, but smoking and drinking were a regular pastime for me and my friends. I've also had many adventures while in pursuit of, during, or after said activities. I am very fond of them. Though each day I become more apathetic towards them. Intoxication was the focus of our nights. Rarely anything else. Many of those nights were very uneventful. Boring? Definitely not. Each night a new show was playing. Watching myself play the part in the theatrics of the social group I inhabited.

At the start of the PCP, I thought that after the 90 days were over, I'd drink again, maybe even smoke. No where near the frequency that I once approached it. Occasionally, once every other week. However, my current stance is that of abstinence. I might partake of each substance only to see how they affect me after undergoing such a project, though I don't plan on it.

I say this because alcohol has very few benefits. I actually look back on alcohol and I cringe. I have no desire to get hammered again. And after watching A Scanner Darkly, I don't think I'll have a more pleasant high if I smoke again.

Yesterday was fail-tastic

Oh man, what a clusterfuck.

I woke up late, ate everything late, took a nap for too long, felt incredibly off from said nap, could only bring myself to do the jump rope, and then gave myself indigestion that messed up my sleep.

On the plus side, today is turning out ok. If I can stay on the ball, it might be a success. Though, I just finished my workout and I wasn't even able to do a full plank rep. I cringe from typing that out. I got to 30 seconds, collapsed, waited 15 seconds, did another 30, collapsed, waited 15, then tried to do 30 more and collapsed after about 10. Everything else was fine (sort of). I mean, I hit muscle failure on the chest dip and push ups on about the third set for both, but the rest of the workout went smoothly. The biceps had to have been the height. I felt like my skin was going to rip open - let me clarify. I didn't quite like this feeling, it was slightly disconcerting. But it signaled to me that I might be doing something right (or something terribly, terribly wrong). Though, once I started getting to the last set for each one, I could only bring myself to do the minimum amount of reps. I feel like I should be doing better. Yeah, I have made a lot or progress, but I feel like I may have stunted it a little from messing up so much.

Anyway, today, if I can stay on the ball, should be ok. It's 5:30 and
I haven't had lunch yet thanks to work. I could have had it at 3:30, when I got home, but every day I come home from work and rest, my muscles get stiff and I become more fatigued. I find it's better if I just plow through the workout ASAP and hope to shovel in all my food afterwords. I'm going to wrap this up so I can start cooking lunch. I may need to cut down on the carbs a little because I don't want to sacrifice the veggies and especially not the protein. I might need to cut dinner a little too because I don't want to get indigestion again but I also want to go to bed at an earlier time.

Also, to answer Jimmy's question, this is radiolab:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/
The best podcast in the world (next to Zen is Stupid, of course)

Oh man, so weird...

Yesterday I sat down to write about why I am doing the PCP, though in an attempt to create some context I ended up rambling on about my past and the post, overall, was a raging mess. It's funny, the way I go about writing hasn't changed much in the past year or so, maybe it has become a bit more refined, but it has stayed almost the same. Yesterday when I was writing though, I noticed how terrible I am at writing. Ok, maybe I have a natural skill with words, but christ, there is no way that can make up for the bumbling mess that occurs when I set down to put words to paper. Coherency is what I lack. I suppose this is what they mean when they say that physical health will lead to better mental performance. This in turn leads me to realize how terrible I am at writing.

Anyway, I just checked my email, and the second sentence of the day 63 message was this:

"Have any of you ever read the book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell?"

Really weird. Why? Because in what I guess you could call the rough-draft of my "reason for doing the PCP" post, I wrote this:

"So, I don't know where It all began, really. One defining moment was when I read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell."

I don't mean to suggest that coincidences have any significance. I've heard that there are no coincidences (something I think is probably bullshit, people underestimate probability), but it costs me nothing to take notice when something pops up and could (in the incredibly unlikely chance that coincidences 'mean something') benefit me in the long run.

Regardless of what you believe, this is a pretty weird coincidence.

Edit: Ok, after thinking about it for like, a few seconds, it doesn't really seem like that spectacular a coincidence. Still kind of funny.

Computer fixed!

Title says it all. It's not the same as it used to be, though... But I guess considering that it went through the equivalent of having a massive stroke, then slipping into a coma for a month to be completely resuscitated in an afternoon, I really can't complain.

Ok, this is hilarious. Well, this part isn't (it's awesome) - girls have been talking to me (and giving me "the eyes") more often. The other day this girl who was ringing up my food at the Stop and Shop was talking to me, and she seemed a bit anxious. I mean the kind of anxiety that you get when you talk to a hot person (not to be self-aggrandizing here). And, being on the opposite end of that anxiety in turn mad me anxious. And that, my friends, is friggin' hilarious.

I think I'm gonna write a post about why I decided to join the PCP, soon. It seems appropriate given that we've all been grinding our wheels lately.

And on that note, I think I'll just touch base on something that is actually very, very related; why I decided to start smoking weed. And (for the reason that I love to talk about it and because I can't remember if I mentioned it already) why I quit.

I got high long before I ever got drunk. My grandfather once asked me why did I start doing either of those things. The answer for the former is because I was at a family wedding, and everyone else was doing it. The reason for the latter is because I was incredibly anxious, and I wanted a way to fix that. Also, I wanted to push the boundaries of my consciousness. That's pretty much it.

Of course, being so terse leaves a little bit out. As a personal testimony, out of all the drugs I've done (and I've done a few; more that I'd like to admit over such a public channel), weed is the safest and least harmful. Hands down. Safe than alcohol. Hell, there were days where I smoked and then the next day I felt amazing - a skip in my step. That has never happened with alcohol.

Of course, If I ever had any anxiety while drunk, it didn't spiral into a torturous hell that seemed to last for hours. With this in mind, it's kind of strange why I used it for the purpose of ridding myself of anxiety.

And that brings us to the reason why I quit. I've only had three REALLY bad highs. Two were close together, when I was a novice smoker and they were anxious in a "dumb" sense. They were just base anxiety. Fear of the flesh. The last time I smoked, I had a really bad high, and this was intelligently horrifying. Fear of the mind, the soul.

I've been doing some heavy learning since I started smoking - And for most of the time it was a relatively spiritual thing. I started smoking around the time I ditched Christianity and adopted this Buddhist-like disposition. That was October 06, and since then I was pouring spiritual and philosophical ideas into my mind. The heaviest of this was this past fall/spring, when I discovered Zen is Stupid, Radiolab, and a bunch of weird-ass shamanistic shit. So, at the time of my last smoke-session, I had all this information about psychology, spirituality, consciousness, and other miscellaneous crap. All this info serving the purpose of getting to the bare root of it all, seeing beyond the symbols. This was the kindling and the weed was the flame.

I didn't go over the edge and have a panic attack - and like most of the highs of that time, it was like blasting off in a rocket shit; a very long and rocky ride followed by an amazing tranquility.

All weed does is move you out of yourself. It takes the environment that houses the awareness that is you, and fucks it up slightly. Also, and I've only heard this once from a random but credible sounding source, it launches your subconscious into your conscious. I gotta say that this is a pretty good explanation for what I experienced on many occasions. I've often felt that, while high, I was peering into the background programming of myself.

You get back what you put into it. In the beginning, I didn't have much to give. At the end I gave more than I could accept in return, and it freaked me out.

Though, as it stands, that last night was one of the most amazing nights of my life. An event like that gives you pretty clear insight, at least on a subconscious level. I'm pretty sure that because of that horrifying night, I decided to sign up for the PCP.

Boot to the face.

What a wonderful day today was.


The series of events are as follows. I wake up at around 9 am. I eat my before workout food. I stretch, and then begin to work out. Less than a minute into the jumps, my rope snaps in half. I don't even know what happened. One minutes I was jumping and the next I was getting hit in the back of the head by two whips. Dumbfounded, I decide not to waste time and hop on my bike. I come back a half out later and try the pull up. I couldn't even do one properly. Utterly pathetic. I spent about a half-hour flipping out and trying to yank myself up to the bar. I just couldn't do it. I actually don't think my bar is wide enough (or high enough, or the kung-fu sit ups) I have no idea how I'm going to fix that.

So, I give up on that and decide to add more reps and sets to the lawn mower. I do that pretty well. Then I go to do the pull-downs and my mother fuckin' resistance band snaps. This was the point where I lost it.

I moved on to the chair-dips, and added more onto those because it was now the only one I could do. Then I did the kung-fu sit ups and those were pathetic. I was getting nothing out of them and I could barely do any. So damn frustrating.

It was at this point I decided to give up. A little bit later I emailed Patrick, saying how it felt like I hadn't made any progress, and that I couldn't go on any longer, and then I went on a bike ride that lasted for about 2-3 hours while listening to blues.

I came back, checked my email, and this is what Pat sent me:

"Whoa, meltdown! Awesome dude,

Slow your roll man. Believe it or not, how you're feeling is very much like how I felt around the Day 60 mark. You've been working really hard, and your body is getting fatigued. Couple that with not enough sleep and you'll be a wreck.

Take a few days off if you need to. Consider this meltdown as a kind of sickness, and do as I advised if you caught a cold.

The weight gain is a good thing. 15 pounds is awesome, even if some of it goes the love handles. You're in the middle of a major body revision, and it's going to take up to two years to really convince your body that you're not satisfied with being an ectomorph. That doesn't mean 2 years like the PCP. These first 90 days are like someone giving you a push as you take off on a long bike ride. In the final month we'll talk about how to transition to more sustainable strategies.

Chat me up when you have the time man, and don't freak out, what you're going through is totally normal. If not for privacy concerns I'd forward you all the other meltdown emails I've received over the years. You're cool man!"

That, I admit, really chilled me out. So I leave you with this: a little while ago I thought to myself that I'm probably not going to be where I want to be at the end of the PCP. And that's ok. I realized that this is a starting point, a first step. Every house needs a good foundation. The PCP is that foundation.

Edit: Forgot to add the pics.
Rope - http://imgur.com/9tyxD.jpg
R. band - http://imgur.com/eF0XC.jpg

Weird day

So, today was a little odd. I was hella sluggish all day, and I wasn't quite sure why. The workout nearly killed me. I managed to do everything, but it was all spaced out. No good. Not good at all.
So, after the shoulder fly, only the v-sit and side crunch remained, yet I was feeling a bit nauseous, and ab workouts were the last thing I wanted to do, so I just kind of sat down in a chair in my room and read some of a book. With each second, it was like this little voice kept saying whispering "yo, go lay on your bed" until it was eventually yelling, so I did what it said. I laid down and practically passed out. I wouldn't call it sleep. It started out with me resting, just thinking about shit to pass the time, while still being consciously aware of my body, but I don't know what would have happened if I tried to move. I thought about it, but that thought, "naah, this feels too good, I'll just chill here fore a little bit longer." Then after what felt like five minutes passed, I decided to get up, except it felt like I was waking up from my thoughts. Also, it was at least 20 minutes later. Really strange.

Anyway, I got up, watched some TV for like, 25 minutes before my parents came home and kicked me out of the living room, where I went up to my room and completely destroyed the ab workouts. Well, the v-sit was really hard for some reason, but the side crunch was awesome and I did a couple extra sets. Guess I just needed a nap? The weird thing is that this is becoming a regular thing for me. I've been sleeping later, waking up later, and been needing naps. So strange. Tonight I'm going to go to bed before 12 and try to wake up at 7-ish.

One thing that pissed me off was dinner. A while ago, back in June, I went to cook some chicken I had stored in a plastic bag. It was fine during lunch I think, but when I opened the bag I was hit with this bad smell. Like a punch to the face. So, I go to make dinner, and the chicken smells fine. I start cooking it and it smells faintly like the chicken I tried to cook back in June, but not that bad, so I give it a shot. When it was finished, It smelled fine, but the after taste was similar to that smell. So, after much thought, I decided to toss it. Then I cooked some fresher chicken I bought that day, and it was fine... mostly. One small area of one of the pieces smelled funky, so I washed it pretty well, cooked both pieces up and they were way under my protein requirement. Like, 40 grams.

Oh well, at least Patrick's email was a lift. All the tips he suggested doing I've been doing recently. Blasting hard-core punk rock, visualizing various muscular people, telling myself that I want this. Even telling myself that this is nothing. That this is so damn easy. All of it helps and the fact that It seems like I'm on the right track makes me feel better.

Edit: Awesome, I feel slightly sick. It's probably not from the chicken, but the fact still remains that I feel like shit.

Frustrated

So, It occurred to me that I was doing the pull up completely wrong this entire time. The way I did it was that it worked out my biceps instead of my back. Actually, when it came down to it, all the back exercises seemed to just end up working my upper arms and not my back. And when I tried to do the pull ups properly, it felt like I was just working my shoulders. Very disheartening. The problem is that the door frame is too small, and all the door frames in my house are like that. I think I'll try and find other ways to work my back and do those in some spare time I have.

Today was pretty interesting; I had a weird dream last night. The essential part of it was that I somehow lost the ability to walk, so I went to my place of work to tell my boss, and he said that he would keep me on, but he'd have to pay me less. So that pissed me off - I rolled off in my wheelchair into the parking lot, where I was like, "man, fuck this!" and exerted a ton of effort and stood up. I think that little bit of hardcore-ness was because of the intense chest dips I did earlier in the week. So I walk back into the store, victorious, and am like, "Yo, check it out bitches! I can walk again!" and they were like, "Man, you're full of bullshit..." which also pissed me off.

I don't know about you guys, but dreams leave a taste in my mouth that effects the entire day. I don't find this to be a problem, I feel like it gives each day a different feel, and that's nice.

Especially today, because when I woke up, I felt very bitter and pissed off. Now, while at home, obviously I interact with my family, and that's different than the way I interact with any other person, which means that while I was at home I could just sort of mope about and make my breakfast and not give it much thought. So, then I went to work, with this bad taste in my mouth. Now, yesterday, I had this idea. After analyzing my own behavior over the course of the past two months, I decided to post my conclusion on Facebook. "In my short life one of the things I've learned is that if you're nice to people, even the assholes, good things will happen to you." I got a ton of responses to it. Another effect it had was that it really made me internalize that philosophy.

Of course, the point is that you aren't nice to people because you want nice things to happen to you. It's only if you're nice to people because you care about them; because you want to connect with another human being. Out of empathy.

So, I go to work, I'm a little pissed off, I have this philosophy really internalized and I begin to interact with customers. And I notice a startling dissonance. I intend to be nice, but everything about me is caustic and sharp, and I am shocked by it. I try harder to be nice, and it actually gets worse. Eventually I just cave to the fact that I'm kind of in a bad mood. I don't force a pleasant expression. I simply relax and speak with the intent to connect and be earnest about what I say. Lo and behold, things get better. My mood lifts and by the time I leave I'm walking on fuckin' sunshine.

My mom showed up to give me a ride and she decided to get some groceries while she was there, so I told her I'd wait outside, seeing as how the sun was out. So I popped in my headphones and just chilled on a bench, and it was awesome. It was like I felt the ebb and flow of the world around me. Then this old lady walked up to me and started talking to me, which I welcomed fully. She told me about her grandson in Afghanistan, how she tried to talk him out of joining the military.

This is a huge step forward, in my eyes. For me, I usually feel like there is this "emotional grease" that sticks to my mood. Anxiety, rage, contempt. Sticks to me and nothing usually gets rid of it. Slow breathing, for example, is the equivalent of running hot water over it. Does jack shit. Today, the "grease" was that of contempt, maybe a little rage. The method of removal was equivalent to taking a chisel and scraping that shit off.

To me, this proves that I'm becoming more mindful.

God damn I'm tired....

Today was rather epic. My workout was really intense. I totally pushed pass muscle failure several times. I guess because of that it's not really muscle failure. In anycase, it was awesome.

I was going to write something about the difference between knowing something and feeling something, but I'm too damn tired.

In the past couple of days, my overall attitude to the PCP has been rather lackadaisical. I don't mean to say I'm becoming apathetic or lazy towards it. Just more relaxed. And I assume that due to this relaxation, I was able to have a more intense workout.

Who knows?

I totally ended today with reading Thomas Pynchon and listening to jazz. So rad. Though, I guess technically I'm ending the day with a blog post... huh. Whatever.

Peace out

Such a drag...

I don't know what it was, but my muscles were just like, "fuck you" today.

Well, I did accidentally do day 51 on day 50, and day 52 on 51, so I decided to do 50 today, except with 8 2-min sets of jumps. It was really only the leg exercises that felt like a drag. The shoulders are always tough. The V-sit I got a little nauseous in the middle (kind of weird) but the side crunches I blasted through.

Oh, and the jump rope is a fuckin' breeze. Probably my favorite part now, next to the floor jump and the side crunch.

"Depression is anger without motivation"

Most of my adolescent life has seen depression, anxiety, despair, and apathy, all interspersed with sudden bouts of intense rage. Why was it like this? Well, for many reasons. One reason is that this house is a complete mess. A total dump. The fridge is filled with so much crap. Some food, most non-food. Some leftovers that have turned to complete mold. When I say this place is a dump, I don't mean it's just messy, disorganized. It's more than that, it's a god damn health hazard. It has me pissed off so much; there was a fly buzzing around our kitchen, so I slapped it out of the air and punched the fuck out of it while it was twitching on the counter (in my defense, I missed the trash day so our garbage cans have been inundated with maggots. To say the least, I am not a very big fan of flies right now)

On the positive side, my family's absence allowed me to be free in my own home. Three weeks of unchecked growth. My biggest concern is that it would all be hacked away upon their return, but it seems I have nothing to worry about. The growth continues.

Consulting memory, I can see that I'm sick a lot. I mean like, almost once a month. Sometimes, if I don't sleep it off in the first three days, it sticks with me for weeks. Hell, I think I might be sick right now. The project has given me a higher awareness of my body. I can feel things that I couldn't really feel before. One of these things is this constant drag I've been feeling. It feels a lot like a sickness that won't go away.

Maybe, you know, if my immune system wasn't under constant assault, I'd have a little more energy.

So frustrated. Depression is anger without motivation, and lately, I've been really fuckin' motivated.

Interesting shift

Damn, I'm posting a lot today.

Today at work I made small talk in Russian with a Bulgarian woman. I can't remember the exact words I used but I know I was speaking fluently and it wasn't English. I remember continuing eating my food (I was on break) and then being like, "holy shit! I just had an entire conversation in Russian!" I nearly choked.

And then when we closed up, I met two Buddhist monks. They live in this house up the street from my job, I'm assuming with other monks. Tibentan Buddhist, by the way. I told them that I'm a buddhist, "I think, I don't really know, I mean I meditate every night, like this," folding my hands into the cosmic mudra, and they said, "oh yes, that's very good." They invited me to visit the house any time, so I think I might do that. Except, I have some hang ups. Specifically, the Dalai Lama's despotism and the rivalry between the Tibetan sects. I heard that the two groups fight alot. Seriously, man, what's the deal, I thought you were all supposed to be peaceful and compassionate.


And holy crap! I just read Patricks email about flossing. Time and time again, I am astounded by what seems to be luck. They say that starting flossing is about as hard as it is to quit cigarettes. The funny thing is that lately I've had these weird urges to floss my teeth. It just feels good for some reason.

Seriously, shit is continually handed to me on a plate. It's like I don't have to work for anything.

Also...

What does everyone think of television? Just curious - I stopped watching TV all together between feb and july, then started watching it like an addict while my folks were away.

Damn you, carbs!

The past couple of days have had many hiccups. My parents have come back and their reintegration has made it bumpy. I've managed to complete my workouts (mostly, I think it was yesterday that I could only complete half of the plank sets and forgot to do the rest later), but I've had to cut my diet a little bit. Last night because I just couldn't stuff all that food in my stomach and this morning because I thought I had work so I ate as much as I can before 9 am. Turns out that my shift was three to nine and not nine to three. God dammit. I'll now be working nights instead of mornings, which might be better. This means that I can do my work out in the morning on tuesday.

Also, it wasn't a total loss. I found a spanish-english dictionary and an issue of "chinese intellectual" - I'm always looking for things to teach/help teach me a language. Also, one of the girls I work with looked pretty cute today.

New Picture arriving.... now

So yeah, nothing necessarily dramatic, but you can kind of see a slight difference. I look healthier and my shoulders look broader. And my hair grew. Though, to me, the most outstanding things seem to be that my shoulders are more uneven (thanks, scoliosis!) and that my stomach seems to bulge a little more.

Of course, these are not new. They are not as apparent in the other pictures, and I think that's due to the fact that in general I'm more relaxed now than I was. So, that is actually awesome.

I don't know much about scoliosis, but for a while I've thought that if I was fit then it would go away. Now, I'm not so sure. If scoliosis is genetic and not caused by constantly hunching over for 15 years straight, then I might be screwed.

I asked my mom what fixes scoliosis, wondering if she'd give me an answer other than a brace or the operating table. she didn't.

Still, I wonder, how many people have scoliosis and how many of those people are in shape, let alone in "peak condition"? I suppose some light google searching would reveal the anweres I'm looking for, but I think I'll go make dinner instead - save the research for tomorrow.

New picture arriving soon...

Today I should be able to submit a new weekly photo. That is, when my parent's return home. They went on vacation at the end of June. Week 4, I think. Anyway, I looked at my week 2 photo for the first time in almost a month and it was a little shocking. I don't have anything to compare to it directly, but I just look so damn skinny in that picture. And gaunt... and kind of ill-looking. I look like a breeze could kill me. lol ok, maybe I'm being a little dramatic. Once I get a new pic up we'll be able to see. There probably won't be too much of a difference. Probably the same only I'll look healthier in the new one.

I can ride my bike with no handlebars

No, really, I can.

I mean to say that, I never could before, but since I bought my bike in May, I would try occasionally and pretty much fail. Today I tried and my hand were clear off the handlebars for like, 13 seconds before I decided to grab them again. That is that I didn't start to lose control, I just felt like riding normally.

As far as the project goes, it's going ok. Tuesday I had work, so I didn't work out in the morning, and decided to do it at night. Except, I accidentally took some keys home and had to return them before the store closed. I ride down and I run into a friend I haven't seen in a while. It turns out he's free tonight and I can choose between doing the project or hanging out with him; I choose the latter on the logic that I can just make up for it tomorrow (funny that the day 45 email would be about not trying to "make up" lost exercise). The next day was pretty awesome. I kicked complete ass in the workout. I managed to do 500 jumps in a row three times (though, my abs failed half-way through the side crunches and I forgot to to them later in the day). Today I barely got out alive, but I did do everything. I was so damn sluggish. My muscles were failing left and right. Why today and yesterday played out like that are pretty obvious and proof that maintaining a constant routine are vital.

I dunno, do I wish I had done my sets instead of seeing "Bruno" with an old friend? Maybe. But I feel like I got more out of that night than I think. I mean, I really pumped myself up to do two days in one. Oh well, who knows?

On another note, I've been experiencing some weird things lately. Let me be specific: I mean weird mental states. For instance, my dreaming is becoming a little odd. The combination of good health and nightly meditation has made my dream recall better, and it has made dreams increadingly more vivid. Whenever you wake up and remember the dream, is there a dissonance? Like, are you dreaming, and then all of a sudden awake, as like a scene change in a movie? For me it usually is, but a while ago I was able to remember the dream fading and then myself slipping out of the chrysalis of the dream state into the waking state. It was pretty cool. Then, the other day, I experienced the same thing only it hurt. That's right, it fuckin' hurt - around my head and that's it. It was as if in order to wake up I had to run through a brick wall that was separating waking from dreaming. It was really cool and may have shed light on why I feel so unnaturally groggy when I wake up.

Also, my mind wanders all over the place, and it sort of trails down whatever thought it gets a hold of until it finds another topic of interest or until I bring myself to the present. I often experince a sudden dissonance between the experience of my last thought and the "snapping back to reality", and like a dream I can't really remember what the thought was like and I can't really remember transitioning from the thought to the present. Except today I had an experience similar to the one where I was waking, I felt my mind shift, rather violently I might add, from the day dream to the present. I was so immersed in the thought (which I can't remember by the way) that it was almost as if I was in one physical reality and then pulled into another.

It also occurs to me that whenever I talk about stuff like this, I usually feel like a lunatic but that's ok, I enjoy talking about them.

Oh, and yeah I mispelled Kellogg's in my last post.

Kellog's sucks

The other day I decided to shop at my place of work for food instead of the competition, and saw that we only had one kind of granola in stock - Kellog's. I had this odd feeling of hesitation but shrugged it off and bought it anyway. When I got home and opened the box I didn't see anything that resembled the other granola I bought. I looked at the ingredients and there was a stark contrast. The original granola I buy all had things I could recognize. Oats, honey, sugar, coconut oil. Ok, so, not the healthiest stuff, but at least I knew what everything was. This crap had - well shit, I don't even know. I'm rather confident that a good 60 percent of the ingredients were manmade. Also, it tasted odd. And the texture was a little messed up. I feel like if this was pre-PCP i'd enjoy it, but right now it was kind of gross. It was sweet, which was nice, but it had this obviously synthetic taste to it.

So, I was curious, and decided to eat a few bowls for the snack. Big surprise, it just made me feel kind of shitty.

Also, Kellog's dropped Micheal Phelps after that whole cannabis scandle a while back. For real? If he was doing coke or shooting up heroin, then yes, I could understand. But not weed.

In conclusion, fuck you, Kellog's. Your cereal wouldn't be appealing even if I was dying from the munchies.

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Ok, so, things have changed a lot this year. Like, more that any year of my life. I have grown more in the past 5 months than I have in the past 8 years. Starting with January, have average habits, which in my case is chilling at my house a decent amount and going out on weekends or nights where I didn't have work in the morning. Then somehow this fiesty Australian chick gets caught up in my group of friends, and we all hang out at her place with an increasing frequency where at some points there would be weekends where I wouldn't even be at my house.

This started in february and lasted until april. I was drunk or high more times than I was sober and my diet was utter crap. Those months left me a little scarred.

Though, if I said I regretted any of it, I would be lying

Then one of us left for boot camp. Actually, I vaguely remember thinking, that before all this started, I would turn my life around and finally get healthy after Nik left - that this was just one big "good-bye" party, which it was (during those months I forgot all about that, but I guess it was rooted deep enough to stick around.) Then that spunky Aussie and her chill roomate moved to another house, so things got disrupted even more. The new arrangements meant that we couldnt' maintain the old habits as frequently.

Then weed started giving me panic attacks. That was basically where it ended for me. It was coming to a slow trickle before actually stopping. I went from my normal habits, to being hyper social, to hanging out at my house every night with the internet and videogames, occasionally going out.

In that first month, when I was surfing the internets, I came across Patrick's zazen video, which lead me to Zen is Stupid. That there was a catalyst. Before May was even half over, I started meditating again, every night, and I started eating better foods and riding my bike more often, and then eventually joined the PCP. A lot of other stuff happened between those times, but whatever. That is a level of detail I do not want to venture into.

What is the point of this entry? I have no idea. I feel like I originally had one, and this is like the third time I've typed this particular "story" out. Not because I'm giving it multiple drafts and trying to make it perfect, but because I started typing and I couldn't help but type this. Once I realized what I was talking about, I thought, "nah, they don't want to hear about this, there is no point to it anyway", but I can't get rid of it.

So, in summary, what we have is basically my group of friends falling apart. And for me, you have a self-imposed isolation. Why? I couldn't tell you. It wasn't explained to me why I decided to do this. "I stopped hanging out with them because I didn't want to get messed up anymore" could be a reason, but It feels really lack luster. I could have made the effort, and just stayed sober, but I didn't, I had no impulse to go out and socialize. I'm kind of glad I didn't, though, because again, I have learned a lot in these past months by my self.

But yeah, as of now, I feel lonely. I won't lie. I've been feeling it for a couple of weeks now, but for the past couple of days, it's been rather heavy. And I use that word for a reason. I have felt a little "down-trodden" lately. Tired, sluggish, listless. Maybe the lack of social interaction has a part to play?

Oh, another interesting note - for the past week and a half, my parents have been in New Hampshire, so I've had the house to myself. It's been nice, but I noticed that within hours of being alone, I felt this biting emtiness. I suddenly couldn't take being alone. But I sucked it up. The reason why It was hitting me now I think as opposed to earlier was because I had my family around to at least provide a backround noise at all times. I also didn't go out and seek company because it wasn't that bad and I had the project to do.

And that's really what it is - I choose better health over comraderie and partying.

If I said I regretted it, I'd be lying.

I feel. I feel a hell of a lot. More than I did before I started the project.

So I'm making a few changes. I'm getting up early to do my work outs in the morning. Get them out of the way so my nights are free. Its at night when I get the lonliest anyway. I'm also planning better. Going to get mathematical and calculate what I need to buy and when so there are no more moments of "Oh, FUCK! I'm out of eggs..."

I think it's time I ended this long string of words, but before I do, a comment on my inspiration figure. During week 1 or 2, I was reminded about Burn Notice, which I used to watch not too long ago, and thought "damn, I should have used Jeffery Donovan as my inspirational figure!" But then I thought about it for a second. Jeffery Donavan, or Micheal Weston - the character he plays - is a mother fuckin' badass. He can do pretty much anything and he's got that moral code. He could probably also seduce a lot of hot babes easily, but he doesn't. That shows restraint which is also badass. Pretty awesome, right? Well, no. First off, he's not free. He is a slave, a tool of the "higher ups", granted it's not willing, he is trying to get his life back, but he's still a slave. David Belle is the founder of Parkour and the philosophy behind Parkour is freedom. Freedom of movement. Free Runners flow like water around obstacles. To me, being able to be free like water is way better than being like a super spy on a leash in a cage.

budem veselit'sya, i budem tantsevat'!

So, my friend totally crapped out on me and didn't help me fix my comp. That means for the time being I have a very expensive paperweight. In the mean time, I can get a library card and use the computers at the library.

Today I was so god damn sluggish. Now, look, I'm a lazy sonofabitch, but this was just bad, even for me. I barely got through the exercise. And, 1400 jumps? Come on, lets me honest, that's nothing. I did 1350 yesterday, easy, in addition to the rest of the work out. I do not know why today was so bad. I don't know if I got enough sleep. I did sleep for 8 hours last night (and I remembered some dreams for the first time in almost a week. hell yeah) but I'm beginning to think I may need more than that.

A cool thing to note; I was reading After Many A Summer by Aldous Huxley and I started to become very drowsy - and then passed out. Then I was carrying some stuff, and listening to this guy in a clear rain parka and this aluminum pole with a net on the end (you know, one of those pool cleaning nets). and he said "just go dump that shit up there, in that shed", pointing to this wooden building atop this hill, with wooden stairs leading up to it. He left to go clean his pool and I began to walk up the stairs with all this crap in my arms. And then I fell backards.

And then I was snapping forward in my recliner, completely confused, looking at the book in my hands and thinking, "wait, how the hell did I get here? Was that a dream? Jesus Christ.." It was so incredibly vivid that It took me a solid ten seconds to start to realize what happened.

I mention it because I pay massive attention to my dreams and I love hearing about the dreams of others. Though, I don't think they have any hidden meaning. Oneirology is BS if you ask me. A dream has a central theme to it with tons of other random crap floating along, like the events of your day if you dropped 3 tabs of acid.

Though, I guess sometimes they aren't weird, like the dream I just mentioned; It was so vivid and normal - I think if something odd happened, I would have been like, "wait, wtf?!" and become lucid.

Anyway, today was just weird and the 4th of july fireworks in Boston were amazing.

Oh, and the title is transliterated russian. It means, "lets have fun, and lets dance!" - it's the name of a song I was listening to while writing this.

Life as a comedy

Ever get that feeling that life is playing a joke on you?

I can't say things are bad, just comically unpleasent. My computer has been steadily dying of a virus and it has been raining here for the past two weeks almost none stop. Also, I think I might be getting sick. I dunno. This woman I work with came in sick but it looked almost like she was faking it. Hell, I should know - I would have recieved oscars for my performances back in the Arlington high school nurse office.

Otherwise, thr project is getting slightly easier. I continue to have success with the new jumprope.

And hoperully my friend can fix my comp on friday.

Good god damn!

So, the new jump-rope is awesome. I only got one minor headache at the start (once I was fully hydrated), and just sort of loosened up a bit and it went away.

My total for tonight is 850-ish. I could have gone to 1150, but something inside me was just like, "no, dude, this is waaaay too much to just jump in after a week of biking"

Personally, I kind of disagree, but what can I say? Intuition is rather persuasive.

I do notice a slight achey-ness in my head, but it's barely there. In fact, as I type this, it's fading away.

Will this success continue onto tomorrow? Who knows? All I can say is that this rope is a VAST improvement. Each jump with this new one felt like ten with the old one.

Ok, wow...

This isn't PCP related, but I had to write about it.

My mom was driving me to a sporting goods store to get me a jump rope, and we were driving on this overpass and I looked out my window and saw the setting sun, and all the light bathing the cars and the asphalt. Everything looked amazing, all colorful - the picture of summer. I'd like to make a note that this is the first day of light that we've had in Massachusetts for what feels like forever (I want to say it's been about a week; a week of constant rain). Now, it's not that I dislike the rain, but as you can imagine, I was beginning to miss the sun.

As we were driving away, I was thinking about how awesome it would be just to sort of relax somewhere that had similar qualities. I guess sitting the side walk would kind of suck - imagine the noise and the exhaust. And even if I could find such a place that didn't have any of the negatives, there's no way I could really enjoy it. I mean, I'd need to be with friends, but all my friends have this attitude - it's hard to explain; places to hang out aren't really judged by their aesthetic appeal, they're judged by their security. I mean, they ask the question, "is anyone gonna see us while we get drunk/high?" I don't think I need to tell you guys that these places are really unpleasant.

So, I thought to myself, "when I can finally lucid dream, I'm going to go to a place that has this beauty with a dream character, and just kind of chill and fly or whatever", but then it occurred to me "hey, I'm already here right now" and when I realized that, I felt completely relaxed, and I felt very light. I simply felt free. That moment slipped into the next, and into the next. I let the beauty of each moment wash over me.

That feeling of freedom is something i've been trying to find for a while. I don't really feel it anymore, but that doesn't mean it's left me.

Like I said, nothing to do with the project (other than the fact that I was on my way to get a better jump rope), but I felt it was worth writing about. And I pretty much expect everyone to be thinking "wtf?" while they read this, it's a little odd. So yeah, that's it I suppose.

Oh yeah! And I got a new jump rope, so I'm going to see if it's worth anything right now.

Things have changed a bit...

As far as I can tell, I still look pretty much the same as I did when I started the program. Maybe my arms look a little more defined or they have a bit more mass added to them, I don't know, but I do know that on a level of feeling has changed. I can't really keep track of it, but things are a tad bit different.

A friend of mine who had recently gone through boot camp said that in the first month, he noticed a few mental changes going on, something that at the time only he noticed (probably because he's a smart son of a bitch and can notice varying degrees of subtlety). Though, when talking to the other airmen after boot camp, they all seemed to notice a similar phenomenon.

Speaking vaguely, these changes are positive, I guess you could say. Overall, that is. I don't think anyone would be surprised to hear that the military fucks with your head a little bit.

I forget many of the specific qualities he described, but at the time even though I knew what he was talking about, I didn't notice anything like it happening in me. Yes, I know, the PCP is not boot camp and boot camp is not the PCP. I'm also not interested in comparing them to each other. What I am interested in is the fact that as I sit here now, I seem to be experiencing some sort of change.

I feel as though I have a slightly higher awareness of my body. And I feel like I'm more "here" (not spacing out, or getting completely lost in random thought).

Why is this important? Well, I've been riding my bike instead of attempting to jump for the past few days. Today, however, I got sick of riding my bike in the rain down the same god damn bike path, so I said "screw it, I'm jumping today." My first time picking up the jump rope in almost a week, and my perception was incredibly different. I noticed a hell of a lot more. The tightness of my back and arms, the sloppiness of my landings, and the shock wave moving through my body (to name a few)

Then I put the rope aside, and did some jumps with no rope, but as if I was really using one. The form was incredibly different, I just jumped and instead of going "dammit! frickin' rope!" I just payed attention to my body, and I completely zoned out and wasn't paying attention to how many I was doing - it was actually quite nice. Then I incorporated my rope and noticed a radical difference. Then I tried to jump in the smooth fashion that I was doing earlier with the rope and found it impossible. I was tripping up on my rope at almost every jump. If I fudged my form a little I managed to get up to five.

I don't know if it's definitely the rope, but I know for sure that it's at least contributing to my problems. And I know you guys are probably like, "well, why the hell didn't you buy a new rope like, a week ago?!" and my answer to that is that no where around here sells jump ropes, and my parents have been on vacation, so relying on public transportation to get to where they sell them would turn it into a day-long trip, so that's a no-go.

Headaches and squats

Just something to note - I'm doing the workout right now, Day 22, and I'm doing the squats and I've done two sets already. On the first one I got a headache, but as soon as I stopped it started to go away. Then after about a minute, I did the second set and made sure to really breath this time (not that my breathing was bad on the first set). Right now, I have a dull ache, but it's nothing. I'm actually quite pleased with this, because to me it signals that it's definitely not something to worry about - likely blood pressure or something of the sort or maybe my breathing is as good as I think it is. Who knows?

Also, This is the first time I've started doing the squats without jumps, biking, or walking before hand on over a week. I just sort of jumped into it. To me, this is kind of a victory, more than anything.

Update: I haven't even finished the workout and the headache is gone. Actually, I feel quite alert and "with it".

Chilled out a bit

Ok, so it's 11:13 now, so my energy has dropped enough and my mind has slowed enough for me to gather my thoughts into something I can type.

I'm considering signing up to a martial arts class. And by considering, I mean I plan to take Aikido and I have a few schools in mind, and once I feel the time is right, I'm going to go scope them out.

I can't really describe my mental and physical state too well. Mentally, I usually operate on a very small scale and take notice of many subtleties, so something that is occurring over the course of tw0-three days can appear like a regular habit. I've known about this particular flaw in my perception for some time, yet I have never really been able to account for it. Regardless of this, one thing I've noticed is this sort of "purification". Thinking and movement incur allusions to water flowing. I feel as though I'm tapping into some reservoir of energy, and I need some way to control it.

Too damn much

There is a shit load going through my mind. It seems the only thing I have the energy to comment on is that the workout has me feeling rather damn good and that it's increasing my mental ability (maybe too much for me to handle right now). Either way, it's friggin' awesome.

Also, the new Zen Is Stupid was hilarious.

Good news, everyone! (Day 18)

I managed to do all 850 jumps for the day without any headache.

Good news, indeed

I mean, they weren't all at once. I did 100, then an exercise, then 100 more, then the next exercise, then 100 more. And at I cut the sit-ups in half, doing 100 after the first two, and then 150 after the last two sets. I am fuckin' exhausted.

Also, on my way to and from the watch shop (to buy a new watch) I kept noticing that I was getting checked out by various women who were on the bus and walking past me on the sidewalk. It's odd, because there hasn't been any noticeable change in my physical appearance over the past two weeks. There is, however, a change in how I hold myself. I feel better, healthier, and slightly more confident.

So far, today has been a good day.

Day 17

Again, still getting headaches. Incredibly frustrating, very disheartening. I'm adjusting to the diet pretty nicely, I never feel as thought I'm eating too much. More like I'm eating enough.

Possible solution

I think I may have figured out why I get headaches when I jump rope. It's gotta be the rope. From what I can tell, it's too short. A few minutes ago it occurred to me that my form is really sloppy, so I dropped the rope, and jumped as if I was holding a rope, as naturally as I possible could. Maintaining a straight posture, moving at a comfortable pace, and breathing properly (or at least I think it was proper). I then tried to do that with my jump rope and it was impossible. I then jumped how I normally jump and noticed that I have to pull my feet up a lot, which strains me more than it should and causes my feet to come down pretty hard. I would describe the rope to you, but it's more effective if I just show it to you:







Ok, so maybe it's not the worst jump rope in the world, and I am only assuming that a better rope will lead to better jumps and no headaches (or at least less headaches)

Though this guy has a compelling argument:


That display makes my jumping look like a spasmodic crack-head.

Vegetable ideas

If anyone has any ideas, that would be great. I just bought a bunch of vegetables; celery, carrots, turnips, white onions, yellow squash, those little white mushrooms, some large broccoli stocks, and maybe something else I forgot.

I also have a few cobs of corn, a few bell peppers (orange, red, and I think green), some cauliflower, some tomatoes and some sugar peas.

So, what should I do with these?

One more thing...

The rest of the exercise is going along really well. Almost a little too well. Aside from the "muscle failure" of the crunches, everything else is going along with no problem.

Just those damn jump...

Day 11

First post in a while. At least it feels like a while. I am still getting headaches, but I highly doubt it's anything serious. I've realized that my mind has wandered this week. I guess it started thursday when I fucked up my sleep cycle, and then a lot of other events occured that distracted me - basically I was shifting my routine to fit the PCP, and then every other variable in my life decided to shift.

When shit happens, I usually rely on my basic routine, which revolves around when I eat and what I eat. I have changed that, and turned it almost into a sort of homework assignment. It didn't really occur to me, but I think I now may be on to something - especially since my sleep cycle is returning to normal.

From this rather massive fall early on, I think I stand to gain quite a bit. I've noticed that I learn the best when I make every mistake I can possibly make, and then picking myself back up - something I learned about myself a few months ago. For one, I feel an increase in my drive and ambition.

The problems I am encountering are headaches from the exercise and not getting enough variety or vegetables in my diet. The carbs are fine, the protein is fine, but I can't continue to eat pasta and olive oil cooked chicked forever. I already have serveral solutions to this problem.

I just have to wait for tomorrow so I can actually implement them...

Day 7

All right. Today was a bit of a different story.

I started out doing the jumps after drinking about three - five cups of water. And I mean big cups. I managed to get to get out 100, but I got a headache again. This time it was different, it struck me as rather obvious why it was occurring this time. It felt exactly like a tension headache, which is what it was. My breathing wasn't the same is it was all those other times that my jumps were successful. So I turned to Google.

God, I love the internet.

Turns out I was correct. Also, before I even finished the search, my head was fine, which means I was likely also correct about yesterday, too.

Later, before dinner, I tried again. All the websites said pretty much the same thing. Jump on a padded surface, breath properly (deeply and smoothly), don't clench up, and if you're new to the jump rope (jumproping?) then do small sets.

I did all of that and I experienced no problem whatsoever. I know, it says 500 jumps, as in one set, but I really couldn't do that. I did 50 jumps, paused for a few seconds before my body chilled, then went to 100, chilled for a few seconds, and then started over again counting to 50. The Funny thing is that it got easier as I went on and by 400 I managed to churn out 100 in a row.

Just to make sure there's no confusion, I want it on record that I started from scratch when I tried the second time, I didn't build off of the first 100.

Day 6

This day was a massive embarrassment. Epic fail isn't good enough.

Quiz time.

What do you get when you slowly get dehydrated over the course of the day and don't realize it, and move from a completely sedentary position to a very active position?

A headache.

What I'm talking about is this. I spent most of the day sitting at my computer, which is odd for me. I'm not really sure why I didn't get up and ride my bike. My guess is that I wasn't drinking enough water and that made me lethargic.

So, at the end of the day, I decide to do the project. I start off with the jumps.

A completely related fact: When you are hungover, a few things happen. One, your body loses a lot of minerals, vitamins, electrolytes (what plants crave. sorry, couldn't resist), and a few enzymes. The other thing that happens is that happens is that your brain literally shrinks in size, which causes the headache. This happens via dehydration.

So, again, what happens when you jump up and down with a dehydrated, shrunken brain? You get a headache.

I did two sets with my shoes on (outside on the grass) and thought that the pain might have been caused by how harsh my feet were coming down on the ground. When I took them off, and still felt pain after the third set, I realized that maybe it was something else.

I'm so smart sometimes, you know?

Why is this embarrassing? Because it prevented me from doing the rest of the exercise. It kills me even typing this now. If I couldn't do the exercises because they were too much, because I was too worked out, I would have been able to live with that. I still would have been incredibly disappointed, but I could bear it. This was because of my own stupidity. And maybe if I had done the exercise early I could have finished if I had time to do so later, but no. This was pretty much headache, rest, then sleep.

As I write this now, Sunday morning, I feel fine. Still slightly dehydrated from yesterday, but much better. Also, If you're wondering, I'm probably an odd case - meaning that chances are I dehydrate faster than most people, but I doubt that. That's just what a doctor told me, but it turned out he was an complete idiot.

The moral of the story? Stay hydrated. Or as the counselors at my old summer camp used to say, "hydrate or die". Also, don't go from completely sedentary to completely active like I did. At least walk up and down your street or something.


Also, for the uninitiated who didn't get my joke:


Oh, I almost forgot, how the hell do you "follow" people? I couldn't find a button for it or anything.

Day 5

It seems like today was a reversal of the previous four. The current theme has been that the eating less and healthier has been easy, while the exercise (mostly jumps) has been more challenging. Today, I managed to bang out the exercise the more efficiently than I have so far. While the diet... well, that's something else.

I had work today. It's not a real job, just one of those sinkholes that you sit in before you go to college or if you're not going anywhere with your life. A bag boy at a grocery store. They don't give you lunch, so my work day (which I've managed to reduce down to two times a week. That place kills my will to do anything like you would not believe) starts out with me eating breakfast, then for my fifteen minute break three hours later, I eat a bagel, a chocolate candy bar, and some water. I feel this combination keeps me up long enough to get through the next three hours, where it is not three o'clock and I usually eat some sort of lunch at that time.

For some reason today, something just went wrong. I suppose I probably should have eaten right when I got home, but I opted out for doing the exercises first. My reasoning being that if I sat down to eat my legs would then rest, losing their momentum and making it harder to work out. So, I scramble to try and get some food, and remember we had pizza last night.

Big mistake

I shoved it in the heater oven, set the timer, and forgot about it. Ten minutes later, I went and got it, and then realized that maybe pizza might not be the best choice. I seem to remember something about cutting down my oil intake - and that's something I've actually been doing for a little while even before the PCP. Though, it's not like I can eat healthful foods for a few weeks and then be ok when I eat some crap. Quite the opposite in fact. When I finished it, I kind felt worse than if I had just stayed hungry and made something worth while.

So, that was my friday. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Day 4

Ok, so I didn't blog Day 3. The reason for this being that I just got Spore and to me that is reason enough to miss a day, while laziness isn't.

Plus, there's nothing about Day 3 that's worth blogging anyway.

Today, there were no challenges except for the jump rope. While my lungs are experiencing significantly less strain, my legs are clenching up like nothing else. I still managed (barely) to get all five sets done. The last one was a little scraggly and was pretty much broken up into 30, 10, 10, 10. Granted, there was no wait in between segments, but it was not one continuous set.

I have yet to do the lunges, but that will be a walk in the park.

And that's it for the day. I guess I'll go in to my motivations for doing the PCP when I feel motivated enough.

Day 2 (and Day 1, I guess)

I guess technically, if we're going by Japanese time, this would be the third day. But because I'd rather make it look like I've only missed one day instead of three, and because it is still Day 2 in this time zone, I've labeled it as such.

Also, I'm throwing in a Little about Day 1.

Anyway, a little about me. I'm an 18 year old (soon to be 19) high-school graduate. I've taken the past year off to get myself together and in the fall I'm starting college. Community College. Kind of a bummer but I suppose that's what I get for screwing around all through high-school. My plan is to grind through the courses there as fast and as well as possible and then transfer, hopefully abroad, where I can study and master as many foreign languages as possible. Right now I know English and very poor Russian. Eventually I hope to master Russian, along with Portuguese, Mandarin, Arabic, French, Italian, Czech, German, and Greek - all this with the hopes of being a translator at the end of it.

I dunno, I guess that's all there really is to know about me. Other things I like are video games, sci-fi shit, most other classic nerd things, and humor. I also love philosophy. For me the term "philosophy" is very very large, and I take the meaning of the word literal, "the love of knowledge". To give you some perspective on what I mean, I often debate philosophy of mind with my friends and right now i'm listening to a lot of Terence McKenna talks. And this post is getting too long. I never really like describing myself because being the narcissist that I am I always get wrapped up in the subject, and at the end I always feel like there is so much I left out. So I guess these are the basics.

On to the actual project. Since I'm such a skinny bastard, Patrick recommended that I do a 3/4 diet instead of 1/2. I guess you can say I've been doing somewhere in between for a couple reasons. One because It occcured to me that I do in fact have really large portions. And two because my portion size and how much and when I eat is usually erratic, so It makes getting anywhere close to 3/4 of what I eat kind of hard. 1/2 is a bit easier and I guess as long as I'm hungry. Aside from trying to be exact, cutting back my food has been real easy.

For the exercise, everything has been a breeze, except for the jump ropes. For the past year I've had a particularly bad habit where I just happen to inhale a certian kind of smoke for recreation with friends and then play xbox 360. And while my memory is fine (probably actually sharper, ironically) my lungs have definitely suffered. And this is even more apparent. As for the other exercises, they were easy. I remember a few years ago I could bang out 30 push ups in one set, and right after that do 40 sit ups. The squats and lunges were a breeze too because for all of May I've been riding my bike around and it has had an obvious effect.

I look at day seven's exercise and I can hear my lungs sobbing.

Well, that's it. Day 1 and 2 kind of combined. I'd go more into my motivations, more of who I am, and my impressions of my fellow PCPers (don't worry, they're all positive), but this post is already too long, and there's always tomorrow.

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Bryan in the House

Hey everyone, this is where Bryan will catalog his Peak Condition experience!