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I’ve been bogged down with work and the mundane details of life for so long. I’m a writer and I’ve almost forgotten the joy I feel when I create. Life should not be this way, but then, I suppose it’s the price I pay for the choices I’ve made. Recently some friends of mine talked me into game-mastering a Shadowrun pen-and-paper role-playing game. I’m generating all of my own characters and adventure plots, and it feels awesome. One of the players has started a blog to chronicle the progress of his character, and I may do the same here, just as a way to get me back into the habit of writing and posting regularly. I need to do something, because I haven’t written in some time, and I’m miserable as a result. I’ve been out of touch for a long time now. It happens when surviving gets in the way of living. I’m still around, in case anyone out there stills remembers me enough to care. I hope to be back on track soon. I peeled a mess of potatoes the other night. I skinned five or six of them, and I realized that I’ve peeled so many in my lifetime that my hands can do it without much conscious direction from my brain. Peeling potatoes is good for thinking. I thought back and wondered how and when I learned to peel a potato, concluding that my father must have taught me. I can’t remember if he gave me direct lessons, or if I learned – as a learned so many things from him – just by watching. He must have chastised me at some point, for cutting too deeply into the potato and wasting some of it, because to this day I strive to cut as close to the skin as possible, and I always get pissed at myself if I cut t0o deep. So there I sat, peeling taters and thinking about my father, remembering back to all the times I watched him peel, shuck corn, or string beans. It’s all good work for thinking. I wonder if I think about the same things he thought about. Sometimes, the answer is certainly no, because I think about my work, all binary ones and zeroes, and Dad never had any understanding of such things. But other times I think about my girlfriend, my family, my future, or my past. I think about dreams I may never achieve and mistakes for which I may never atone. I make plans to ensure the people I love are safe and happy. In these times, I think my thoughts and my father’s are very close. I also wonder what he thought about when he looked up from his labors and saw a little blue-eyed boy watching him. What were his hopes and plans for me? Did he have any idea of who I would become, the victories I’d achieve, the atrocities I’d commit, the love I’d feel, the hearts I’d break, the creations I’d make, the destruction I’d cause? Did he know he was teaching me to be a man just by being himself and allowing me to watch? Did he know that, by teaching me to peel a potato, a piece of him would live in me for years after he was gone? I looked up from my pile of potato pills, but there was no little boy or girl watching me. Just a cat, and she couldn’t give less of a shit about potatoes. I just want the world to know that I have found my soulmate. Her name is Natasha Anderson, and I love her with everything that I am. She is beautiful, funny, sensible, responsible, so sexy, and crazy enough to love me. In a word, she’s perfect. I am so proud of her, so proud to be with her. I’m unsure that I’m worthy of her, and I’m certain I don’t deserve to be as happy as I am with her, but I try to improve every day. I work hard to be worthy. Some days I do better than others, but I always try as hard as I can. I tried to upload a picture, but I’m having some technical difficulties. The upload keeps erroring out, but I’ll get it fixed!
Yesterday evening was the kind of night where so many little things went wrong, one right after another, until I reached a point where I could hear myself, outside of my body, as if I were looking down from fifty feet above and narrating my own life. Narrator-Me looked down on Pissed-Off-Me – my head down, shoulders slumped, and fists clenched. The scene froze, and Narrator-Me (who sounded a lot like Waylon Jennings on the Dukes of Hazard show) said, “Now, I wonder how big a can o’ whoopass that boy’s fixin’ to pry open?” Continue reading Little Things Can Pile Up Into a Bad Day »» I go to the gym often, sometimes six days a week, but I don’t like it. I love to exercise, but I hate the gym. The problem with a gym is that it’s full of people. People are rude and disgusting more often than not. Thinking about joining a fitness club? Here are twenty-nine reasons to workout at home instead: Continue reading 29 Reasons to not Go to the Gym »» I’ve always been a big guy, and I realize I can be very intimidating. I rarely use this to my advantage, because I hate bullies. However, I confess that from time to time I do a little trick I like to call “passive assertion,” where I can manipulate a situation or get away with certain actions because I know people will look at me and decide it’s best not to confront or antagonize me, just in case I’m as mean as I look. Please consider the following: Continue reading Passive Assertiveness »» I made it to the gym one day last week. I did very well on my diet until the weekend. I partied and pigged out Saturday and Sunday, which killed my daily average. Even so, I came in under last week’s average, and I lost some weight. I’m going to try very hard to really stick to my diet and get to the gym four times this week.
In preparation for an upcoming attempt to gain agent representation, I’ve focused the website almost entirely on Warlock’s Wake. I felt the old design was too cluttered, with too many links and features to distract away from what really matters. All of the old content is still in place. The blog formerly known as “Random Headtrips” can still be accessed by clicking the “Shannon’s Journal” link in the righthand sidebar. All other legacy shannonthomas.org content must ne accessed by the links found on the ARCHIVES page (linked at the yop of this page above the main header graphic.) That page contains links by date or by category. If you want a click overview of what’s new, I’ve left the NEWEST 50 page in the main menu as well, beside the ARCHIVES link. Shannon’s life: The Readers’ Digest Condensed Version. It’s his story, and he’s sticking to it. Last week wasn’t great for exercise. The roads were terrible and I fought a sinus cold all week. I shoveled snow off my car pad twice. Other than that I did no exercise at all. I was only slightly more successful with my diet. I continued my two-month streak with no soda. I drank one beer. I ate a handful of Hershey’s kisses, two fudge chocolate chip cookies, and a slice of chocolate cheese cake. I didn’t keep strict track of my calories, but I think I averaged about 3500 a day. All in all, it isn’t a spectacular start, but at least it’s a start. I joined a “Biggest Loser” competition at work to give me added incentive, so I’m hopeful I can get the weight off of me again. Weight 01.04.10: 299.4 Now that the new year is officially upon us, I’m rededicating myself to this site and to adding content on a regular basis. If you’d like to keep up with the content I post here, I’ve provided five ways to stay informed: 1) Feedburner – See the “By Email” button in the upper right corner? Clicking that button will open a page that prompts you for an email address. If you submit an address, you will receive an email when I post new content. You will receive no more than one email a day. If I post ten items, you’ll get one email. This is my preferred way for folks to track my site because I can see and publish the number of subscribers. 2&3) RSS – beside the email button in the upper right corner, you will see links for comments and posts. These links bring in RSS feeds to your browser. You can bookmark or add them as favorites in the menu bar of your web browser, which allows you to click on the link and see if there’s any new posts or comments, without actually navigating to the site. 4) Comments Email Subscription – at the bottom of every post, you’ll see a link for subscribing to the post. This allows you to receive an email anytime someone posts another comment, in case you want to know when I reply to your comment or if some one has commented on what you posted. 5) Newsletters – If you’ve subscribed to the website and supplied a valid email, you’ll get a newsletter in your email a few times a year from me. I don’t do them very often, usually less than three a year, but they include good information about site features, updates, and any password changes. In March 2009, I weighed 305 pounds. My performance in the gym was as follows:
In June 2009, I weighed 275 pounds. I don’t know what my max performance was, but I swam 44 laps in under 40 minutes. Today, in January 2010, my weight has increased back to 299 pounds. I am unhappy with this regain of weight I worked so hard to lose, but I’m still in better shape than I was a year ago:
I’ve also made some progress on with my diet. I haven’t had a soda in two months, and I’ve nearly stopped my alcohol consumption. This week I am going to cut out the junk food as much as I can. I’m going to try cold turkey. We’ll see how it goes. This week I am also going to step up my gym routine and try to go 4-5 days a week instead of 2-3. I’m going to start posting my weekly “I’m a Loser” updates again, no matter how poorly I fare. The goal is to lose ten pounds a month for five months. At the end of May, I want to weigh 250 pounds. I know I can do it, if I can just get my diet under control. My biggest challenge is that I eat when I get stressed or depressed. I eat to calm down. I need to train myself to use a different coping mechanism. I’m strongly considering amphetamines or cocaine. (I’m kidding!) In all seriousness, I think I’ll get some exercise equipment for the house. I want to get a home gym built so I can stop paying the fitness center $45 a month. It will also help me with stress if I can lift dumbbells instead of cupcakes when I’m stressed. At work I’m not going to carry money or cards with me so I can’t hit up the cafeteria, vending machines, or ATM. I’ll go to the gym after work, burn out my stress, and go home. If I don’t pig out during dinner, the day will have been a success. Frequent visitors of this site know that I always have too many irons in the fire. I can’t seem to take one out without putting two new ones in. This coming year I’m going to try to focus my time and energy and keep from spreading myself to thin. With that in mind, I’ve made a list of tasks I want to accomplish in the next year. Some are simple; others will require their own lists of sub-tasks, but don’t worry; I’ll get it figured out. Here it is, the Master To-Do List for 2010:
Hmmmm… That’s still a lot of irons for the fire. I suppose 2010 will be business as usual: full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes! What about you? What do you want to accomplish next year? I’m a little bit bummed out this morning. I’m on vacation this week, but besides the fact that I’m not at work, it doesn’t feel much like vacation. Things happen, plans change. Sometimes you just roll with the punches. I’ve had lots of ups and downs since Christmas Eve, and I’m trying to focus on the positive side of life, but I just can’t shake off this tenacious funk. This is a time for family and home. I miss my family, and I miss my home. I miss the simpler times when it didn’t require a miracle to get all of us together under the same roof at the same time. I spent Christmas night with my girlfriend. Otherwise, I’ve been in this house alone for five days, and I’ve just about had enough of it. I’ve ventured out into public a few times, thinking it would help me to just be around people, but on each occasion I’ve barely made it home without killing one idiot or another. I can’t decide if there is something about the holidays that makes people even more stupid than usual, or if the imbeciles are always out there, but they’re just out in public more often during this time. I’m also bummed because I’ve done more research on starting my own business and self-publishing my novel. I can already tell that the business side of this endeavor is going to wilt my soul. I have no interest in it whatsoever. Even worse, my research indicates one depressing trend: Self-publishing a fiction novel is a total waste of time and money. I’m not even sure how I’m going to finance it. I had thought I’d get a loan, but now that I see everything that goes into the preparation to even apply for a business loan… It just seems like a waste of time. I’m still committed to doing… something. I just don’t know what, and the absence of bearing or course has me in a terrible rage. I launched a plan in 1993. Sixteen years ago, I contrived to get a day job that would pay the bills and allow me build my writing career on the side. It took me longer to get the job I needed, but I have it now. However, I can’t truthfully say that my plan is working because of any force I applied to my fate. Circumstances have just aligned such that things seem to be working out as I planned. I’ve done some very difficult things in my life, and I’ve had some tough times. By no means has my life been easy, and I’ve always worked hard. However, I’ve never really took control. If I wanted to sum up my entire life, I’ve always just gone with the flow, even if the flow took me into turbulent places. I just rode it out and did whatever I needed to ensure I came out of it in one piece. I’ve had this novel written for three years, and it has gone nowhere. I’ve made all sorts of excuses and expended massive amounts of time and energy in websites, editing, and other bullshit, but I’m no closer to publication now than when I started in 2006. Why is that? I’ve attended one of the most expensive and prestigious colleges in the state. I’ve been an Airborne Ranger. I’ve been a college instructor. I’ve been face-down on solid rock bottom and climbed back up again. I’ve been a network admin at a hospital. Now I’ve got a job important enough that I don’t talk about it. I’ve written 170,000 words between two novels, and I know beyond any doubt that both novels are better than 50% of the shit that’s in the bookstores right now. So why aren’t they published? How can I have done the things I’ve done and achieved all of these accomplishments, but these novels are still just digital dreams on my hard drive? I can point fingers and sling blame all day, but the simple truth is that publishing these books requires me to go against the flow, something I’ve never done before. I haven’t really tried as hard as I could have, because the flow took me other places. No one is going to do this for me. I must do it myself. I know I can make it happen. The real question is, do I want it bad enough? I wish I could pound my chest and roar, “YES! OF COURSE I WANT IT BAD ENOUGH!” But I’m just not sure anymore. I had two major goals this year: I was going to lose forty pounds, and I was going to publish my book. I lost 30 pounds, regained 25 of it, and didn’t even come close to publication. Therefore, it may not require too much imagination to see why I sometimes consider this last year to be a total waste of my time and life. However, there are other circumstances to consider. Before we pass final judgment on the year, let us consider what other events have transpired. In January I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, and I learned that I had been on the brink of dying in my sleep numerous times. I was prescribed a bi-pap machine and began recovering from years of sleep (and oxygen) deprivation. In February I quit my job at Camden Clark Hospital and started a new one at the Bureau of Public Debt. I had just gotten to a point where I was comfortable in my position at the hospital; I’d only been there 18 months. But I packed my bags and moved onto something bigger and better. I was faced with an even steeper learning curve and even more challenging obstacles at BPD than I had surmounted at the hospital, but I persevered. Now, eleven months later, I still have much to learn, but I am mostly settled, and my yearly appraisal indicates that management is very pleased with my performance thus far. I am in a great place, with a great team, great management, and great opportunities. If I must be in Parkersburg and if I must work in information technology, it simply doesn’t get any better than this. In March I ended a relationship with a woman I’d been seeing for five years. It was extremely difficult for me to end it, and even though I am still 500% certain it was the best thing for both of us, I still have mixed emotions about the way I ended things. I have met someone, and she’s quite possibly the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Since I’ve met her, I’ve been learning to laugh and love life again. We’ve had some ups and downs already, but all in all, we get better and stronger every day. Over the summer I had two opportunities to see my three best friends. All four of us had not been together in years, but we made it happen twice this year, and I hope we can make it a precedent for following years. There are few treatments better for the soul than to be with friends who know you well, and don’t judge you despite what they know. I bought my very first home in late August, and that has taken much of my time – learning about taxes, home owners’ associations, insurance… the list goes on and on. I also became a pet owner again. Cali spends her days contriving ways to wrap me around her paw. She also delights in giving me minor heart attacks by hiding in odd places until the perfect moment to jump out and scare me half to death. Even though I’ve regained much of the weight I lost earlier in the year, I am still stronger than when I started. I’ve steadily increased weight in the gym, and I still feel (and move) much better than I did a year ago. If I can just get my diet back under control, I should be able to slim down again. I have not published the novel or gained an agent, but I have combined websites, improved the one site that remains, made progress with an illustrator, commissioned custom music for the site, and made tentative arrangements with animator to make a video trailer. I have also decided once and for all that I am going to self-publish and self-promote this book. I’ve done some research, but I still have a ways to go. At least I have a job that will allow me to pay for this. Additionally, I’ve made tremendous effort to clean up my credit rating this year, so perhaps I can get a business loan if I need it. Let’s see – new relationship, new job, new house, new cat, revitalized website, healthier body, bigger paycheck, and a solid plan to self-publish - maybe the past year hasn’t been a total waste after all. I adopted a cat from the humane society yesterday. I wanted a dog and a cat, but after careful consideration of the things I hope to achieve in the coming year, I decided a dog was a bad idea, because I intend to be on the road many weekends. The last two pets I owned were cats I literally took off the street, so I thought I’d go to the pound and see if I could find an adult cat that was already housetrained. Cats can be very detached creatures, and I hoped to find one that would take a liking to me and perhaps be affectionate more often than not. My father has such a cat. It’s officially Mother’s cat, and it’s officially named “Miss Kitty” but the cat prefers Dad and follows him around so much that he calls it “Cat-dog.” I wanted my very own cat-dog. I found a female adult cat that crawled up into my lap, buried her head under my arm, and purred so hard that it shook my guts. I named her Calisto (Cali for short) and brought her home with me. She’s only been in my house 24 hours, and she already rules the place. She follows me where ever I go, never letting me leave her sight. She’s on my lap right now, “helping” me type this blog entry. In all honesty, I may have gotten a little more than I bargained for:
There is a quiet sadness and a disoriented desperation that permeate the air in a nightclub when the white lights go on and the bouncers herd everyone out. Closing time. Very few people are simply tired. They’ve partied as hard as they could, and they’re ready to go home and sleep. They’re content, but exhausted. Others aren’t finished. They don’t want the music and booze to stop flowing. Partying at the club is an escape for them. For one reason or another, they are in no hurry to return to their regular lives, and the white lights always kick on way too early, dispelling all illusions they’ve erected between themselves and reality. Some are searching for something – adventure, escape, reminders of better days, an omen, drugs, a one-night-stand – and they haven’t found it yet. For them, the last note of the last song is the sound of failure. The window of opportunity has closed. It is time to go home empty-handed. All of this combines into a dreary emotional sludge that’s as real and as powerful as the mottled stench of stale beer, cigarette smoke, perfume, and sweat. Everyone wanders about like lost sheep. They must know where the door is, because they walked through it to enter. They must know it’s time to go because the bouncers and the PA system tell them it’s time. And yet they meander about, in no great hurry to go, as if everyone is waiting to hear the answer to an unspoken question born out of a communal state of denial: what’s next? On one night or another, I have been all of these people, including the bouncer who just wants the sheeple to leave so he can go home and shower the stink of the place off of his skin. On other nights, I am none of these people. I’m simply an empathetic watcher, spending time with these children of the night, experiencing their condition until the sun comes up, because I cannot sleep due to reasons all of my own. Americans have become the Children of Now. We focus on the present. We scramble about, always in a hurry, always looking for ways to save time, always seeking new, better, and faster ways to satisfy our addiction to instant gratification. We live ever in the moment, and yet we scurry about so frantically that we often do not take time to actually enjoy the present. There’s just too much to do, too much stress, too many obligations, and too many time slots filled into our calendars. It seems there is never enough time. I must count myself among my fellow Americans. If life is a rat race, in recent years I’ve been among the most fevered and frantic forerunners, running so fast that the wind shear makes my eyes water. Recently I stopped running. I stopped, looked around, and asked myself, “Is it true? Is there truly a shortage of time? How is it possible that I work so hard, spend so much time, and expend so much energy but have so little to show for it?”
I threw away the list of unimportant things. I made another list of things that have to be done, whether they’re a priority or not (work, paying bills, cleaning house, buying groceries, etc.) Considering these two lists, I realized I do not have enough time in one day to accomplish everything every day. However, it turns out that I do have enough hours in a week. I can accomplish everything I need to do and almost everything I want to do, every week. I’ve tried this new schedule for two weeks, and I have yet to stick to it 100%. I’ve found that a few things from the unimportant list manage to creep in, even though I supposedly threw them away. Video games and movies are prime examples of these. But compliance with my schedule isn’t the focus. I concentrate on the fact that it is possible to work towards all of the important priorities in my life every week, if I want to. I have rediscovered something that many Americans have forgotten, or never learned at all: Living a disciplined life offers a subtle and profound satisfaction that cannot be achieved in any other fashion. Life is chaotic insanity. Most of us have little control over the forces and events that affect our lives. However, I can control some things, and I can control how I react to things that are beyond my control. At the beginning of every day, I never know what the world holds in store for me, but I don’t stress over it, because I wake, knowing what I intend to accomplish during the day. I have already identified tasks that must be accomplished and tasks that I really want to accomplish. I’ve identified the general sequence and timing of these accomplishments, with the understanding that I may need to change things if the world is being a bitch today. I find reassurance and peace in this, to be able to say with certainty, “I know what I am going to accomplish today.” When the day is done and I’m lying in bed, that sense of reassured peace transforms into a deep satisfaction if I can review the day and know that I achieved all (or most) of what I set out to do. It pleases me to know that I finished what I started, and that my work has been done well. I’m still just as busy and I’m still running just as fast as I was before I stopped and prioritized, but I’m happier than before, because now I feel less frantic or desperate. I have a sense of empowerment and a sense that I’m moving in a chosen direction. Beforehand I was running for my life, like some victim in a horror-slasher movie. I had no direction, no sense. I was just running as fast and as hard as I could, trying to stay ahead of… something. Now I’m running just as hard, but I’m in a marathon. I have mile markers and a finish line. I have rewards for finishing. I made two out of three work. Now when I publish a new post or edit an existing one, a notification will automatically post on Facebook and Myspace. I couldn’t get Twitter to work, but that’s OK. I really don’t get the point of Twitter anyway. I should be in bed instead of fooling with this. Edit: I think facebook is working now. Edit: facebook is working. I’m going to try twitter one more time This isn’t working out too well. Myspace is good. The other two still do not work. I’m getting pissed. [edit] one little check box without a check mark in it can make a huge difference. [/edit] [edit] grrrrr…. myspace is working great. Facebook and twitter are still being stubborn. What a pain in the ass. [/edit] [edit] One more time. I’m spamming the crap out of my facebook account with this nonsense [/edit] Myspace is working, but the entire post is getting pushed to the blog. I only want a notification. Let’s see if I can make that happen and also get Facebook and Twitter to work…. | ||||
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