Osu

[Kishi]

On ‎12‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 1:09 PM, Treva said:

I am really glad you ran into k-sensei to talk about the posting, because he told you what I was gonna say with less eloquence.  I am so glad he was there to tell you to not stop writing, because you shouldn't!  You have really cool ideas and your story, no matter who thinks its "good" or "not good", is worthy of being told.

 

Yeah. Like, I wasn't going to stop writing, but there's a part of me that wants to write well and be like Lewis and Tolkien, you know? Take high ideas and break them into something that can be digested and understood by the masses. To Make Good Art, as Gaiman would say. I've kind of been on the fence about whether or not I could do that or not, especially since I don't think I have it in me to write "literature" or high art or what have you.

 

But even if I can't write like the masters, well. I can write the best I've ever written. That'll have to be as it is.

 

On ‎12‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 1:09 PM, Treva said:

I'm rambling.  Anyways, if you need a pep talk, I'd encourage you to give Richard Bausch's Letter to a Young Writer a read, if you haven't come across it.  I know you're not a novice, but I really like it for it's inspirational qualities.  

 

Aah, yes. This. I read it once a long time ago. I could probably stand to do so again. Thank you.

 

On ‎12‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 1:09 PM, Treva said:

DO WANT DO WANT DO WANT

sounds well thought out AND bangin interesting.  You do it dude, you do it.  

 

 

Well, you might just have something sooner than you think. See...

 

*

 

Gawd, it's been like a week since I've been back to my own topic.

 

Best get that fixed.

 

So Wednesday night was beer and The Expanse, and one of the characters is pretty majorly shady in a way I didn't notice before, but that's cool. I haven't seen far enough ahead to figure out whether he's actually hiding something or not.

 

Thursday, I hopped back on the mats for the first time in a while. Went hard. Felt great. Headstands afterward went up like a charm, which was a pleasant surprise - after how long I spent on the last progression, I thought it'd be harder. Oh well. No complaints.

 

Friday, went and trained legs and core. Hit progression standard on the leg work, so now the next step is to start lessening the assistance until it becomes something I can't do again. Core work was snarled in that I had to use some equipment that other people were using, and I didn't really have the time to wait on it so I settled for volume on a lower progression. Not bad, but not the way I wanted to spend the night. Otherwise, it was quiet.

 

Saturday, slept in late, got up to go play with knives which was cool. We have a gent there now who, to my understanding, has some military knife stuff in his background? Would be fun to work with if so. Also, apparently there's someone who sells knives in the nearby mall who wants us to put on a demo about safe knife movement? I'm not sure what the details are on all that yet but it'd be pretty exciting to get out and play in front of a bunch of strangers.

 

That night I got back home and found some messages from a friend of mine asking if the novel had been finished. I told him that the words were done but the draft was not. He said he'd beta-read when I was done. I asked him to give me a deadline. He did.

 

Oh darn.

 

 

So, uh, yeah. I've got until the 21st to put something together. I'm fine as long as I don't think about it.

 

...

 

 

MOVING ON

 

After the deadline, I went out to go write with a friend of mine. A good use of my Saturday night; just getting out and focusing on nothing but that. I can see why she elects to go to a coffeehouse for that kind of thing. It isolates you from what's going on at home.

 

Sunday, got up, watched my bro's stream, and then went to box for a bit. Lot of focus on sparring, which felt good. Lot of time on jump rope, which I wouldn't have preferred, but didn't seem to aggravate anything like it normally does. Which is good, I think?

 

Did more strength work afterward, although I think it would have been better if I'd done it earlier in the morning when I was caffeinated. Oh well. Gains is gains.

 

Monday was quiet. Work is being kind of a pill - they want us to focus on a particular category of cases to the exclusion of our productivity. Which sucks, because my caseload is pretty high, and I'd just started to turn this thing around. Feels like a poor use of my time, which doesn't make the work any easier. But, oh well.

 

Tonight, Karate and kettlebells in that order. I think I've got everything I need back at home, but I'm still going to need to run some errands tonight and I don't know how that's going to work out with class and timing and such. I want to try to get out tonight because a friend of mine invited me out to improv on Thursday night, which means no class. Feels like a bad look, you know?

[Mistr]

21 hours ago, Kishi said:

 

Yeah. Like, I wasn't going to stop writing, but there's a part of me that wants to write well and be like Lewis and Tolkien, you know? Take high ideas and break them into something that can be digested and understood by the masses. To Make Good Art, as Gaiman would say. I've kind of been on the fence about whether or not I could do that or not, especially since I don't think I have it in me to write "literature" or high art or what have you.

 

But even if I can't write like the masters, well. I can write the best I've ever written. That'll have to be as it is.

 

You can write wonderful stories that have little resemblance to anything anyone has ever written before. Keep in mind that at the time, Shakespeare was writing for the popular media, not the high-brow literature of his day. Think about the impact of comics on people you know. Comics reach far more people than high art does.

 

Write the kind of thing you like best and do a good job of it. Worrying about what other people think will just drive you nuts. You can never please everyone, and neither can anyone else. Get your work out there so it can find its audience.

 

21 hours ago, Kishi said:

Saturday, slept in late, got up to go play with knives which was cool. We have a gent there now who, to my understanding, has some military knife stuff in his background? Would be fun to work with if so. Also, apparently there's someone who sells knives in the nearby mall who wants us to put on a demo about safe knife movement? I'm not sure what the details are on all that yet but it'd be pretty exciting to get out and play in front of a bunch of strangers.

 

Safe knife movement? I'm all for kitchen safety. I don't see how Kali would have anything to do with that...

 

21 hours ago, Kishi said:

Monday was quiet. Work is being kind of a pill - they want us to focus on a particular category of cases to the exclusion of our productivity. Which sucks, because my caseload is pretty high, and I'd just started to turn this thing around. Feels like a poor use of my time, which doesn't make the work any easier. But, oh well.

 

Yeeesh, that sounds like a catch-22 at work. Are they officially changing your metrics to give you extra credit for doing those cases? If not, stick with what they measure. Those are the numbers that you have to make for your performance review. You can do a couple extra of the special cases when you have time.

[Urgan]

21 minutes ago, Mistr said:

You can write wonderful stories that have little resemblance to anything anyone has ever written before. Keep in mind that at the time, Shakespeare was writing for the popular media, not the high-brow literature of his day. Think about the impact of comics on people you know. Comics reach far more people than high art does.

 

Write the kind of thing you like best and do a good job of it. Worrying about what other people think will just drive you nuts. You can never please everyone, and neither can anyone else. Get your work out there so it can find its audience.

 

This.

 

Creating anything can be so sickeningly difficult to get started and a labor of love that the most important person your work can please is you. Whether is constitutes comparisons with Literature is a completely unrelated debate and throwing your Baby into the lion's den of lit crit is a good way to get something mangled. I personally couldn't contemplate factoring in pleasing people who fancy engaging in Literary Analysis for funsies when I sit down to work on my story outline, talk about a mood killer. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

33 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

This.

 

Creating anything can be so sickeningly difficult to get started and a labor of love that the most important person your work can please is you. Whether is constitutes comparisons with Literature is a completely unrelated debate and throwing your Baby into the lion's den of lit crit is a good way to get something mangled. I personally couldn't contemplate factoring in pleasing people who fancy engaging in Literary Analysis for funsies when I sit down to work on my story outline, talk about a mood killer. 

I once tried to read something by Stephen Brust (this, apparently) and just couldn't get through it. It wasn't that it was a bad book, I just didn't like the style. I saw something either on the dust jacket (or I had looked him up online) and he said his highest guiding principle in writing was "and now I'm going to tell you something really cool." Turns out he and I think different things are cool, but that's no slight on him as an author, it just means he's not my preference. I respect him for writing what he likes.

[Kishi]

22 hours ago, Mistr said:

You can write wonderful stories that have little resemblance to anything anyone has ever written before. Keep in mind that at the time, Shakespeare was writing for the popular media, not the high-brow literature of his day. Think about the impact of comics on people you know. Comics reach far more people than high art does.

 

On ‎12‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 1:45 PM, Urgan said:

Creating anything can be so sickeningly difficult to get started and a labor of love that the most important person your work can please is you. Whether is constitutes comparisons with Literature is a completely unrelated debate and throwing your Baby into the lion's den of lit crit is a good way to get something mangled. I personally couldn't contemplate factoring in pleasing people who fancy engaging in Literary Analysis for funsies when I sit down to work on my story outline, talk about a mood killer.

 

On ‎12‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 2:21 PM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I once tried to read something by Stephen Brust (this, apparently) and just couldn't get through it. It wasn't that it was a bad book, I just didn't like the style. I saw something either on the dust jacket (or I had looked him up online) and he said his highest guiding principle in writing was "and now I'm going to tell you something really cool." Turns out he and I think different things are cool, but that's no slight on him as an author, it just means he's not my preference. I respect him for writing what he likes.

 

I see and acknowledge the point. At the same time, I don't think it's contradictory to point out that what's popular and what endures isn't necessarily what is the best art that ever was. There could be great work hidden in the annals of history that we never got to see, and the fact that it didn't survive in the marketplace doesn't mean it was bad, it just means it didn't have a market.

 

Because then, in service to your point, you can have high art that reaches lots of people. I think Shakespeare qualifies; the dude wrote clever, searing poetry and had to make up words that we still use to make his stories work. I personally think Pratchett qualifies too, and if we want to talk comics then there's Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and Neil Gaiman.

 

But like, you know, take sci fi. Sci fi has literature. You have Clarke's Childhood's End, Lem's Solaris, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5. It's hard stuff to read, and quite well-regarded in the genre, but none of those titles have the marketing power of, say, Scalzi or Correia or Butcher. And the way I was taught to write, there was this weird sort of dichotomy where you read the masters and it's like, "These are the great ones. Strive to be like them. Also, you'll never be like them, so don't try."

 

But, yeah. I dunno. Y'all are right. The only thing I can write is the thing I want to write. What comes out comes out, and what will be will be. Get it out and let things fall where they will.

 

22 hours ago, Mistr said:

Write the kind of thing you like best and do a good job of it. Worrying about what other people think will just drive you nuts. You can never please everyone, and neither can anyone else. Get your work out there so it can find its audience.

 

Yup. Just look at what happened to JK Rowling.

 

On ‎12‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 1:16 PM, Mistr said:

Safe knife movement? I'm all for kitchen safety. I don't see how Kali would have anything to do with that...

 

You'd be surprised! The one rule of Kali is "Don't get cut."

 

On ‎12‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 1:16 PM, Mistr said:

Yeeesh, that sounds like a catch-22 at work. Are they officially changing your metrics to give you extra credit for doing those cases? If not, stick with what they measure. Those are the numbers that you have to make for your performance review. You can do a couple extra of the special cases when you have time.

 

Somewhat! There's incentive in that these are aged cases and they count against my stats for processing time when they close. But we've been given a dispensational period, wherein if we can get rid of the cases in that period, they won't count against our stats. Still means I have to take care of the others, though.

 

*

 

So, Wednesday I decided to take off on account of having a bunch of medical stuff to deal with. I unknowingly scheduled a physical on the same day I had lined up for repeat bloodwork, and between a morning and an afternoon appointment I figured why bother?

 

Morning bloodwork went off without a hitch. On the physical, I topped out the scale at about 200 or so. Which was a little scary to see, but I'm wearing it well and I don't think I'm losing anything in terms of physical capacity, so no worries. Got the results back from some prior bloodwork and the blood lipids are essentially where they were 6 months ago. This despite going on a low fat diet.

 

So, sad face. But it's not all bad news. Like I said back then, my LDL's high, but so's my HDL and it's basically keeping me asymptomatic and under control. There's no concern at this time for me developing any kind of coronary artery disease or anything like that, and while they do want me to watch those numbers, on the whole they're pretty unconcerned. Since they're unconcerned, I'm unconcerned.

 

Since I had the day off, I decided to go ahead and hop off to go do my leg work at the gym. I wanted to hit up some jump rope as well, but that didn't happen as I finished right in time for a class to usurp my space, and there wasn't anywhere else on the sidelines. So I left it.

 

After that, beer and The Expanse. It was good.

 

Today, work. No karate because, as I said, I'll be going off to support a friend at improv. Still mean to get some headstand work done, though.

[Kishi]

A small addenda to yesterday's status: I ran my own measurements yesterday morning, because I wanted to see what was going on. 192 lbs at 18% body fat; index measurements have gone in a not-positive direction. So, mixed bag. I'm maintaining where I was, not better, but not worse.

 

Hamstring was feeling kind of delicate yesterday, so probably it was for the best that I took things relatively easy with prior leg training.

 

Headstand work went well! Everything went off without a hitch. All this prior practice has been to my good, since I've got a good feel for what "stacking the joints" feels like.

 

Writing went well too. I'm taking this week to flesh out characters and the last magic system I've got - cast needed to fill out a little bit more - then next week we start to fill in scenes and their sequels. I'll try to delineate chapters between them just to go ahead and keep my head on straight about what I'm writing when. If that goes according to plan, then by 12/15-16 I should be able to start writing. Which doesn't sound like much to meet the deadline, but what I've found is that when I use this method and have a clear map to follow, I can generate a lot of words very quickly. And without the quantity-as-quality rule, I'll be able to turn out something better than what I had on draft to start with.

 

I can still make deadline even if I don't have everything planned out just yet. Dude just wants to read some stuff, and I just want some stuff for him to read. More than a page, less than a novel? Sure.

 

Improv comedy went okay. My friend who was up there was not very strong that night; none of his group really was. He was able to go with the stuff but he just couldn't get his jokes to land. But I say that as someone who has friends who would do this professionally if they could and are good enough to do so, and frankly he deserves a ton of credit just for being up there. He probably did a better job than I would have done in those circumstances.

 

Anyway, ate like an asshole last night and ate like one today on account of one of my coworkers retiring. Looking at my measurements, some of this stuff is starting to get out of hand, and anyway I know what my maintenance calories look like now.

 

Time to go on a cut, I think.

[Kishi]

So! I dunno if y'all heard but we got snowed on again down here. It was dramatic, although I thought it was very pretty.

 

But it's not like that's the only thing that happened.

 

Friday night, I went out to Chapel Hill and got my stab on with the self-defense folks. Afterward, I kind of vacillated between going to the gym and going home to get some sleep. I ultimately decided to rest, since I've discovered that gymnastic strength training tends to cover a lot of the same ground as S&S, and I would have been gymming on Friday night to make room for S&S on Saturday. So I took rest and figured I'd do GST on Saturday.

 

Saturday morning I woke up to a text from the Kali folk that they'd gone to a local blade store to arrange for a demo. They'd wanted me to be there. But I was asleep, so I wasn't there. Oh well. As it happened, I got up, got to the gym, did my GST, and then went to Kali. We got into more of what he calls "Sectoring" - playing with a short blade and dealing with it when someone's coming at you. This is probably more of what we needed in the first place; we've lost some business from our folks on Friday night, between that instructor's bias toward his own work and what I suppose is his bias against the pedagogy we exhibited (lots of flowing/kata work).

 

I elected not to remind him that this was what I told him in the first place. Seemed like poor form. Anyway, he's amenable now, especially having seen how I comported myself against that untrained guy. So we got in there Saturday and spent a lot of time working on shortblade stuff.

 

Helped clean up the school, then went home, cleaned up, and went back out again to go write with my friend. Did a lot of good work there and also did my publicist work there as well. It's a lot of fun to get out there, actually; there's live music in the place on Saturday nights and the dude opens up beer taps and there's a food truck out front. It feels like this warm, artistic space, and I'm not distracted, which is so blessedly rare.

 

Went to the grocery store for some last minute foods before the snow hit and it was like the hurricane all over again. Had to laugh. By some miracle I managed to be in and out fairly quickly, though.

 

Later that night, it snowed.

 

It snowed into Sunday enough to cancel boxing. So I elected to just do GST with the equipment I had. Realized I'd miscued some things on my push ups - scapulae are supposed to stay protracted instead of going between protraction and retraction like I'd been doing them. Doing them the way I'm supposed to do them actually makes them easier; I reckon I won't be on this level of my training for much longer.

 

Otherwise, I pretty much kept it chill and took it easy. Monday, the roads were garbage and I elected to stay off and stay safe. No gaming.

 

Tonight should be karate and kettlebells. Roads are good enough and there's no reason not to. Might not be in uniform, though. ;;

[Kishi]

So! Yesterday happened.

 

Not much to report. Martial arts went well, mostly focusing on the use of front thrust kick. Not my favorite, because of how likely you are to get your toes, but the thing is one of my favorite fakes relies on front thrust to work. So I explored ways to get the person's hands up high and then stick 'em down below. Turns out it takes a lot of work to sell it when the other guy's been told to expect it, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

 

Afterward, played with the bells, cooked dinner, and went to bed.

 

Got texted this morning that beer and sci fi is off tonight on account of family visiting for the holiday. So, I've got gear packed in the car and ready to go for judo tonight. It'll be a late one at work, though, so we'll see how it goes in terms of getting there when and such. Leg day today regardless; legs are a little smoked after the work last night, though.

[Urgan]

35 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Not much to report. Martial arts went well, mostly focusing on the use of front thrust kick. Not my favorite, because of how likely you are to get your toes, but the thing is one of my favorite fakes relies on front thrust to work. So I explored ways to get the person's hands up high and then stick 'em down below. Turns out it takes a lot of work to sell it when the other guy's been told to expect it, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

 

Being a good partner is tricky in this situation. Almost breaks down to philosophy.

[Kishi]

2 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

Being a good partner is tricky in this situation. Almost breaks down to philosophy.

 

Yeah. It's not like I couldn't land them, though, and the drill itself was more like light sparring with restrictions in place. It worked out okay, and it wasn't like we were just sticking each other for funsies.

[Urgan]

17 hours ago, Kishi said:

 

Yeah. It's not like I couldn't land them, though, and the drill itself was more like light sparring with restrictions in place. It worked out okay, and it wasn't like we were just sticking each other for funsies.

 

Wait....what? I thought masochism was part of the deal with the Martial Arts Life. Lol. 

[Kishi]

28 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

Wait....what? I thought masochism was part of the deal with the Martial Arts Life. Lol. 

 

It is, but only if you can learn from it.

 

*

 

So, Wednesday went about as expected. Got out late, got to gym late, did my work, but finished too late to get to the mats.

 

Oh well. It happens. It's still more beneficial to whole-ass one thing than it is to half-ass two things.

 

Assisted Squats: 1x21

Integrated Mobility: Done

 

Half Squats: 1x15

Integrated Mobility: Done

 

Full Squats: 1x9

Integrated Mobility: Done

 

Deck Squats: 5x2

Integrated Mobility: Done

 

Notes:

• Lot of work in a short period of time.
• Deck Squats are being done with those thin yoga-mat things at the gym. At 5 mats now. Hoping to get down to 3 and then just drop to 1. Reason being that a standard gymnastics mat is apparently an inch thick and 3 mats is one inch. If I can get down that low, it means I can basically do deck squats to form without assistance. Which would be cool.
• That being said, on this latest set, I missed a couple of reps, so I wound up hitting 8/10. My personal take on it is that I'm not cleared to add reps until I'm hitting 90% correct, but next week is a deload so it'll be lots of practice before I hit it again.

Decided to skip rope after, and man that was difficult. One thing I neglected to mention is that Karate lately has emphasized lower stance work, so my legs were kind of smoked to start with and they weren't happier with me after all that. OTOH, though, I really do need to get better at this. Boxing depends on it; I know the coach there is going to want us in and doing this.

 

Hamstring was a little angry at me afterward, but I stretched it out some and then later attacked it with a LAX ball at home. It seems to be okay. Gymnastic Bodies has been really good about stretching cues, so I'm being careful in terms of working with my actual range of motion as opposed to inflating it and going farther than I should.

 

Anyway. Karate and handstands tonight. Not much else to report. Onward!

[Kishi]

By the way, just some unvarnished sentimentality for @Urgan, @Tanktimus the Encourager, @Mistr, and @Treva: I really haven't been good about getting around to y'all and seeing how you've been, what you've been up to. I'm not informed right now about what y'all are struggling with, what you're going through, and how your awesome is overcoming those things. But I want you to know that I'm really glad that y'all stop by and say hello and remind me that I'm being heard and I'm not just shouting out into the void on everything.

 

I feel like I've not been good to you in terms of returning those favors and being encouraging about y'all and what you're dealing with and going through, but I want you to know that what you do really matters to me, and I'm so thankful that you take the time with as busy as you are to stop by and say hello.

 

So, you know. Thank you. For everything.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

3 hours ago, Kishi said:

By the way, just some unvarnished sentimentality for @Urgan, @Tanktimus the Encourager, @Mistr, and @Treva: I really haven't been good about getting around to y'all and seeing how you've been, what you've been up to. I'm not informed right now about what y'all are struggling with, what you're going through, and how your awesome is overcoming those things. But I want you to know that I'm really glad that y'all stop by and say hello and remind me that I'm being heard and I'm not just shouting out into the void on everything.

 

I feel like I've not been good to you in terms of returning those favors and being encouraging about y'all and what you're dealing with and going through, but I want you to know that what you do really matters to me, and I'm so thankful that you take the time with as busy as you are to stop by and say hello.

 

So, you know. Thank you. For everything.

You're very welcome. And no reciprocation is required. You may not do that for me, but I see you do it for other people. What you do does not go unnoticed.

[Mistr]

You have been here for all the Monks for years. You are allowed to have a life actually doing the things you've been working towards. Take your time and stop by to say hi when you have a break. Really, I don't know how you manage to train in three or four martial arts plus your personal fitness program, writing and gaming.

 

I'm glad you got to enjoy a taste of winter weather. It's fun to have a snow day every once in a while, as long as you don't have to go anywhere.

[Treva]

*sputters* *stammers*

By my standards you’ve been great about getting around to my blog and I’m the one not returning the favors to you, but that aside:

 

gotta echo the folks above.  I have NO idea how you keep up with training, writing, a full time job, and being kind and posting to all the monks. You do amazing work in your world that got snowed on and in our monastery here. You are a solid training icon/gym goals and guild master and I personally couldn’t ask for anyone better.  You are the bomb dot com, and all that goodness right back atcha.

 

 

Happy snow day and boy am I glad to hear your gymnastics program is big on stretches.

[Kishi]

On ‎12‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 2:26 PM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

You're very welcome. And no reciprocation is required. You may not do that for me, but I see you do it for other people. What you do does not go unnoticed.

 

Yeah, man, but I still get that feeling, you know, like "Who encourages the encourager?"

 

Thank you, though, for noticing.

 

22 hours ago, Mistr said:

You have been here for all the Monks for years. You are allowed to have a life actually doing the things you've been working towards. Take your time and stop by to say hi when you have a break. Really, I don't know how you manage to train in three or four martial arts plus your personal fitness program, writing and gaming.

 

When I figure it out, I'll let you know.

 

22 hours ago, Mistr said:

I'm glad you got to enjoy a taste of winter weather. It's fun to have a snow day every once in a while, as long as you don't have to go anywhere.

 

Oh yes. It was nice to get a break, just sit in and watch the white fall.

 

8 hours ago, Treva said:

*sputters* *stammers*

By my standards you’ve been great about getting around to my blog and I’m the one not returning the favors to you, but that aside:

 

gotta echo the folks above.  I have NO idea how you keep up with training, writing, a full time job, and being kind and posting to all the monks. You do amazing work in your world that got snowed on and in our monastery here. You are a solid training icon/gym goals and guild master and I personally couldn’t ask for anyone better.  You are the bomb dot com, and all that goodness right back atcha. 

 

 

Thank you.

 

8 hours ago, Treva said:

Happy snow day and boy am I glad to hear your gymnastics program is big on stretches.

 

Yeah, you know, at first I thought it would be too much. Now I'm not so sure.

 

*

 

So, Thursday. Thursday wound up being one of those days where the vicious cycle got in the way of the karate. That does not make Kishi a happy boy.

 

I still got some work done:

 

Wrist Stretches: Done

 

Wrist Prep Series: Done

 

Tripod: 1x15s

Integrated Mobility: Done

 

Headstand: 1x9s

Integrated Mobility: Done

 

Forearm Headstand: 5x60s

Integrated Mobility: Done

 

Figuratively and literally hit the wall on this one. I could stay inverted for time but couldn't freestand. I dunno. Off nights happen; I'm not really reading anything into it.

 

I also decided to test my cooking process, as I've taken to frying stuff up to go alongside the IP meals I cook for myself. I started cooking everything from scratch at about the time I would have got back. And, it worked!

 

"But Kishi, why are you panfrying anything right now? I thought you didn't have the room or the time for that kind of thing." Yeah, well, situation changed. I rearranged the kitchen-closet so I had room for that kind of thing, and I'm panfrying food for quality of life purposes because... I've elected to go mostly vegan on my own time.

 

...

 

imagine this is what coming out of the closet feels like.

 

So, why the hell did I do this?

 

Well, leaving aside the politics of wanting to stick it to the energy companies that are burning us alive by avoiding patronizing the most energy-intensive forms of agriculture, I've been intrigued by this experiment by the Drs. Nadolsky. Their blood numbers basically reacted like they'd been taking statins. I figured statins were in my future if I didn't make a change, and they freak me out, so I decided to try to beat them to the punch. I've been about 90% compliant; my one indulgence in the past couple of weeks has been 3 whole eggs a day with dinner. I've been very careful about this too, given my concerns over hypothyroid and low T - there's some soy in my diet now, but it's only a little and fermented at that, and I stick to nondairy milks like flax and oatmilk rather than going soy. I gave up just about all saturated fat; it's all MUFAs and Omega-3s from here. (I still do fish oil. Sorry, Mother Earth, but my heart needs it and my pocket book can't spring for the vegan sources yet). I've also been careful to make sure that I'm getting taurine, carnosine, and creatine via supplementation to balance out and keep my head straight, and so far this has worked well.

 

As far as weight loss and management has been concerned, I reneged on the cut after a few days because I wasn't sure if it would work with hypothyroid or not. But I took measurements again today, and while I'm maintaining, my measurements are conflicted, with the fat percentage being up but the index measurements being... okay. So I think some kind of cut is in order. I've been researching what that looks like, and both the hypothyroid and high-T folks agree that a very small cut and a lot of gentle movement are the keys to getting this down in the long run.

 

Small cut's easy, but finding time to hop on the dreadmill and walk for time is... mildly infuriating. But then again, now that I know that my cooking can be done in a super short period of time (like, I'm freaky fast now; veggie protein cooks so much faster than meat), maybe I can make a go of it. Whatever extra work I do, though, I solemnly swear will be gentle. Between the KB swings being done for speed and power and the skipping rope, I've got enough rough stuff. Not terribly interested in metconning it up since those times when I do that is when I tend to get hurt.

 

Anyway. Core work tonight, and... well, I'll figure out the walking as I go (ha!).

[Mistr]

On 12/14/2018 at 3:06 PM, Kishi said:

Well, leaving aside the politics of wanting to stick it to the energy companies that are burning us alive by avoiding patronizing the most energy-intensive forms of agriculture, I've been intrigued by this experiment by the Drs. Nadolsky. Their blood numbers basically reacted like they'd been taking statins. I figured statins were in my future if I didn't make a change, and they freak me out, so I decided to try to beat them to the punch. I've been about 90% compliant; my one indulgence in the past couple of weeks has been 3 whole eggs a day with dinner. I've been very careful about this too, given my concerns over hypothyroid and low T - there's some soy in my diet now, but it's only a little and fermented at that, and I stick to nondairy milks like flax and oatmilk rather than going soy. I gave up just about all saturated fat; it's all MUFAs and Omega-3s from here. (I still do fish oil. Sorry, Mother Earth, but my heart needs it and my pocket book can't spring for the vegan sources yet). I've also been careful to make sure that I'm getting taurine, carnosine, and creatine via supplementation to balance out and keep my head straight, and so far this has worked well.

 

As far as weight loss and management has been concerned, I reneged on the cut after a few days because I wasn't sure if it would work with hypothyroid or not. But I took measurements again today, and while I'm maintaining, my measurements are conflicted, with the fat percentage being up but the index measurements being... okay. So I think some kind of cut is in order. I've been researching what that looks like, and both the hypothyroid and high-T folks agree that a very small cut and a lot of gentle movement are the keys to getting this down in the long run.

 

Okay, I can see why you would try a vegan diet to see if it helps your blood chemistry. Since you are doing it for health rather than ideological reasons, you might decide to add other food sources (eggs, fish, dairy, etc.) at some point in the future. It's reassuring to see that the doctors maintained strength and energy during their vegan testing.

 

The part I'm having trouble understanding is the gentle movement. You currently do a lot of vigorous movement plus strength training. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't call TGUs "gentle". If you squint your eyes just right, you could call Kali "gentle". Not so much the Judo and Karate. So are you adding more gentle movement on top of the vigorous stuff, or are you cutting back?

[Kishi]

4 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Okay, I can see why you would try a vegan diet to see if it helps your blood chemistry. Since you are doing it for health rather than ideological reasons, you might decide to add other food sources (eggs, fish, dairy, etc.) at some point in the future. It's reassuring to see that the doctors maintained strength and energy during their vegan testing.

 

Oh yes. And as it is right now, I'm still a social omnivore. We had a Christmas potluck at the dojo, and Manong's wife sent me home with some adobo chicken that she'd prepared herself. She makes good adobo chicken, so I've been gnawing on that for the past couple days.

 

Basically, I'm trying to be super-chill and not raise a fuss, especially since I'm doing this mostly for myself. I'm too vegan for it to be socially acceptable, but not vegan enough to find acceptance in the community. And as the doctors pointed out, it's not like having meat every now and again is going to kill me.

 

(also, totally stoked for vat-grown meat. If we can get to the point where we can just make the very highest quality meats as opposed to harvesting them? dude. I'm totally there for that).

 

9 minutes ago, Mistr said:

The part I'm having trouble understanding is the gentle movement. You currently do a lot of vigorous movement plus strength training. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't call TGUs "gentle". If you squint your eyes just right, you could call Kali "gentle". Not so much the Judo and Karate. So are you adding more gentle movement on top of the vigorous stuff, or are you cutting back?

 

More gentle movement. Just finding time and opportunities to go walking when I can. Like we've said, there's no need for more vigorous work.

 

---

 

Friday was a day. Core work happened, and it was an overall strong session. It's a good one to go to deload on.

 

Saturday I was up before noon (shocking, I say, just shocking) and cooking a huge batch of coconut jasmine rice. Elected to go savory on flavor this time. Wound up overestimating how much we needed so I came back home with a lot of it. Otherwise, there was lots of good food there - the aforementioned adobo chicken, jerk chicken, mac and cheese, a few different kinds of dessert like cassava cake and cookies and some kind of cookie dough/cheese cake/brownie hybrid. We did some kali for a while and then was food.

 

Sunday, got up, did my upper body work, then hit boxing without any kind of food inbetween to recharge. That was dumb. Especially since coach decided it was time to get into some street boxing. I should mention that he's a brown belt in Krav Maga and works as a bouncer, and he introduced some rather fiendish ideas to training in addition to deciding to run a burnout session. I was not strong on the mats. We wound up simulating fighting out of a corner and working on stacking, and I think I could work judo into this - you could totally stack someone into sasae, I just know it - but my attempts to do so really emphasized to me just how much I need to get back on the mats for that. Of course, if I can keep getting up in the mornings, that'll be good enough to make that happen on Saturdays.

 

I made time to go for a walk on the treadmill afterward. After that, I was able to get home, get dinner and chores done, and just chill out.

 

Today's a rest day and gaming. I didn't sleep very well last night and I don't really want to go to gaming, but I have gifts to give to friends and my best odds of meeting them will happen here. Sigh. The things I do for love.

[Kishi]

Gaming happened! Only one of the friends showed up. Raaaah. But she liked her gift, and that makes me happy, so.

 

Game was pretty low-key, but good, and we were able to get out at a reasonable hour. Got down to bed and this time managed to pass out. Definitely feeling that sleep debt today, though.

 

Goal today is karate and kettlebells, the latter of which should be easier since it's a deload week. And, uh, yeah, we keep on going.

[Kishi]

Tuesday happened! Or I happened to it. I'm never sure about causal chains, to be frank.

 

Tuesday, I got to the gym and got the chance to walk for a little bit. Not as long as I would have liked, but more than I'd done before. One of my timesinks has been watching content on YouTube as a way to unwind; doing so on a treadmill actually feels really nice, you know, like I've done something with that time in addition to keeping current on things I like.

 

Karate afterward was good. Spar-heavy. It was waifu's birthday and she wasn't stoked to be there. Which, I mean, okay. As a grown-ass woman, she has her agency, and if she really didn't want to be there, she could have told K-sensei no. In any event, it translated to me keeping my mouth shut and doing what I was told. Business as usual.

 

S&S afterward was just 100 straight one-arm swings with the 8, switching off every 10 swings. TGUs were done with a shoe, except for one under the bell to reflect where I am in re-development right now.

 

And, uh, yeah. Body's feeling better than it has in a while, ie less pain in places. Heck, I was feeling better last week; the deload should only help that along. But I've been a bad about my sleep for the past couple of days, and that needs to be corrected.

 

Also, in writing news - writing's happening, but I seriously overestimated myself in terms of how much I was going to get done. Oops.

[Kishi]

Wednesday did not go anything like it was planned.

 

The plan was that I was going to go to an escape room out in Durham with that friend of mine that I go to see. But, Durham's a long way away when it's rush hour, and everybody decided it would be fun to get rekt on the road. I was supposed to be at the place at 18:00, but I had just got to the outskirts of Raleigh by that time.

 

So, I elected to make the most of it. I did some Christmas shopping, went to the gym, did some deloaded leg work and went for a long walk. Watched a lot of my content while on the treadmill. Can't emphasize how nice it is to be doing something physically useful alongside the mental decompression stuff.

 

Got home, cooked dinner, went to bed.

 

Since today was the office Christmas party, I decided to weigh myself. Was at ~191 lbs last week; this week I'm at ~185, with about .75" off the waist bringing me to 39". Didn't expect that; I've been eating around 2100 calories or so, give or take a hundred. Interesting. If history is anything to go on, what's probably going to happen is that this is where I'm going to stay and nothing I do will move it. We'll see what happens, though.

 

Tonight's plan was handstands and karate, but I have a mighty need to get some laundry done on account of being out of work clothes, so I'm going to have to cancel out of the one to make room for the other. Since the gym is on the way home, it doesn't make sense not to hit up a walk for a while.

[Urgan]

On 12/19/2018 at 9:33 AM, Kishi said:

Karate afterward was good. Spar-heavy. It was waifu's birthday and she wasn't stoked to be there. Which, I mean, okay. As a grown-ass woman, she has her agency, and if she really didn't want to be there, she could have told K-sensei no. In any event, it translated to me keeping my mouth shut and doing what I was told. Business as usual.

 

AKA a day that ends in 'y' lol...

 

I wish she'd change her attitude. Either find a way to like some part of her experience with the art or find the intestinal fortitude to stop doing it at all. The status quo just flat sucks.

[Kishi]

On ‎12‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 2:37 PM, Urgan said:

AKA a day that ends in 'y' lol...

 

*sigh* Yup.

 

On ‎12‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 2:37 PM, Urgan said:

I wish she'd change her attitude. Either find a way to like some part of her experience with the art or find the intestinal fortitude to stop doing it at all. The status quo just flat sucks.

 

Yup. At this point, I'm pretty much just trying to take what I can that's useful from her being there. She's good to practice going lightly with and really forces me to work on movement. Also, when she's there, I don't have to work as hard, mostly because she slows things down given how intensively K-sensei tries to teach. She's not exactly getting it. (which, not sure if that's an affinity problem or an attitudinal problem. I veer toward the latter as she achieved a decent kyo rank in judo before she lost her patience for it).

 

*

 

Good Lord, I done gone disappearifyed for a week again.

 

There's not much to report. No karate on Thursday. Got guilted pretty hard for that. K-sensei was like "even though Waifu wants to take a night off and even though my throat's gone scratchy, we're still going to be there." I exercised restraint and didn't tell him how stupid I thought he was being, especially since the other teachers take off when they have to.

 

Friday and Saturday weren't anything to write home about. Sunday was a Christmas party with some friends of mine and a whole lot of their friends who I didn't know. I had a hard time connecting with people there - I tried to stay engaged in conversation, but for their parts they all seemed more interested in talking with each other than with me. Which sounds incredibly self-pitying as I type it, but I lack another way to explain it. Just really hard to connect with. But they all seemed rather boring to me anyway, so I don't really feel like I lost anything.

 

Incidentally, the only thing I lost was some weight. Again. I weighed in on Sunday at about 182 lbs. Bruh, what. That's a lot of weight to lose very quickly. I solemnly swear, I've been sitting within 50-100 calories of 2100 on my intake; hell, I'd been heavier on intake the past few days prior to the weigh-in. The only things I can think of that are different are that one, I've taken up IF again, albeit much more casually so that I'm only skipping breakfast and avoiding my negative compulsions around food; and two, that I switched out rice for quinoa (ie a simple carb for a more complex one). Um, the macros have changed a bit; I get a lot more calories from fat again, but I'm sticking stubbornly to Omega-3s and MUFAs, and that's helping some. I've also adjusted my supplementation some - I brushed up on some good vegan research w/ @ChrisWithaStick's help and took up Vitamin K2; I've also started in on an Ashwagandha supplement for my T. This all seems to be working together well so far.

 

Also, pickled ginger and sauerkraut. I swear by it, I do.

 

Anyway. Christmas Eve was spent with that friend and his wife and his brother and his brother's husband. There was another lady there as well, who seemed nice. I had a way better time here; way easier to connect with people.

 

Christmas Day was the nerdiest Christmas ever. Went to go see my folks. Bro DM'd a game of D&D for us. He's a very good DM; he's got to the point where the time flies and we want to keep going even when he's said he's done. We ate together and then marathoned the LOTR trilogy. Good times.

 

Yesterday I had off. More time with that friend for watching The Expanse; I actually messaged him beforehand and was like, "Yo, if you're tired of me, we can push this back." And he was like, "Nah man." So we went and watched and had fun together. Was able to get some legwork done beforehand, though; did my squat progressions, skipped rope, and walked it off. Ate more junk food on account of the holiday, but the good news is that I have way less of it to eat now.

 

Karate and handstand work today. The new gym that I joined - the one with the hanging bags - is slated to open today. So I'mma have to cancel out the membership at the old place. There's a Planet Fitness nearby, and thanks to their shitty policies I've actually been maintaining a membership there for a while. So the plan is to cancel the old one, use PF for its treadmills, and hit up the new one when it's time for strength work. Of course, that's gonna be dicey, what with it being a new gym in a busy part of town, and also the New Year New Me crowd incoming. I suppose, if I show up very early or very late, it won't be a problem, and I'm actually optimistic that that'll be my experience of the thing.

[Urgan]

6 minutes ago, Kishi said:

There's not much to report. No karate on Thursday. Got guilted pretty hard for that. K-sensei was like "even though Waifu wants to take a night off and even though my throat's gone scratchy, we're still going to be there." I exercised restraint and didn't tell him how stupid I thought he was being, especially since the other teachers take off when they have to.

 

I hope you told him that in the realm of guilting people for not showing up to a thing, he is doing it wrong.

 

8 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Karate and handstand work today. The new gym that I joined - the one with the hanging bags - is slated to open today. So I'mma have to cancel out the membership at the old place. There's a Planet Fitness nearby, and thanks to their shitty policies I've actually been maintaining a membership there for a while. So the plan is to cancel the old one, use PF for its treadmills, and hit up the new one when it's time for strength work. Of course, that's gonna be dicey, what with it being a new gym in a busy part of town, and also the New Year New Me crowd incoming. I suppose, if I show up very early or very late, it won't be a problem, and I'm actually optimistic that that'll be my experience of the thing.

 

The joys of lifting at stupid o'clock, the Resolutioners rarely make it out before the sun.