[fleaball]

I was going to sit out this challenge like I did the last one. Then I had my physical this week and did not go through my usual panic of "omg I've been eating like shit and my labs are going to be awful!" since every time I do that things turn out fine. So of course my A1c and all the components of my cholesterol went in the opposite directions from where they should be and now I'm back to being mad at myself for being fat and diabetic and all the other things I don't like about myself. Immediately sent the lab results to my nutritionist with a message that simply said "guess I'm doing a challenge after all." And here I am. 

 

goals:

1. walk - at a minimum 0.5 miles every day by going to/from the closest point of interest in Pokemon GO

2. read - 1 chapter of a book every day

3. track - every single godforsaken thing I eat because that clearly got away from me recently

4. plan - every night write down one easy and one medium-effort thing to do the next day, and then actually do them the next day

 

 

My doctor gave me a talking to about how I need to change things up and start being active and whatnot and I don't disagree with her and had already planned on some things, and then of course because she said something my brain turned into this instead:

 

 

wish me luck.

[fleaball]

paging @Severine I did the thing

[Whisper]

fleaball!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hi

 

Also, this is now my favorite motivational poster.

[Severine]

1 hour ago, fleaball said:

paging @Severine I did the thing

 

You beat me to it, but I did it too! Thanks for the much-needed and very much appreciated jostling.

 

1 hour ago, fleaball said:

Then I had my physical this week and did not go through my usual panic of "omg I've been eating like shit and my labs are going to be awful!" since every time I do that things turn out fine.

 

See you shouldn't even say things like this, because my brain immediately is like SEE WORRYING HELPS and then I have to shove it in a closet until it quiets down.

 

Everything in your challenge is a good idea. I will be here and following.  Let me know if you want obnoxious gifs texted to you as walking reminders (what are friends for?)

[RES]

I missed you last challenge, I'm glad you're back. ❤️ 

Please take care of yourself now, and don't wait until you're my age because it does not get easier, I promise!

[fleaball]

On 9/7/2024 at 9:47 PM, Whisper said:

fleaball!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hi

 

Also, this is now my favorite motivational poster.

I sent my nutritionist this thread bc I was too lazy to recap my goals for her, and she scrolled down and thought this was the best thing ever. Also hi

 

On 9/7/2024 at 11:10 PM, Severine said:

See you shouldn't even say things like this, because my brain immediately is like SEE WORRYING HELPS and then I have to shove it in a closet until it quiets down.

that was honest to god one of my initial reactions. like fuck me, I jinxed myself!

 

On 9/7/2024 at 11:10 PM, Severine said:

Everything in your challenge is a good idea. I will be here and following.  Let me know if you want obnoxious gifs texted to you as walking reminders (what are friends for?)

want? no. need? probably. feel free lol

 

22 hours ago, RES said:

I missed you last challenge, I'm glad you're back. ❤️ 

Please take care of yourself now, and don't wait until you're my age because it does not get easier, I promise!

❤️ 

[fleaball]

I'm so tired. ? Started the challenge today because yesterday I only got 2 hours of sleep and nothing was going to get done. Got around 11 hours last night and somehow feel just as dead. Demolished a large coffee and feel no better. Counting down the hours til I can go to bed now. 

 

Turns out I am so much more out of shape than I thought. Knocked out my pokemon walk before my nutritionist appointment this afternoon and istg I didn't get 10 feet from my house before my legs started protesting. My quads and all the butt muscles were just instantly fatigued and felt as if I'd already gone a mile. I was planning on walking an actual mile and some change this friday because I have an appointment at the hospital and was going to walk back to the train station and catch pokemon but yeah that might get skipped in favor of not dying. We'll see how it turns out. Have done my two predetermined tasks for the day and am in the process of looking up nutrition facts for what I ate already to add to cronometer. and trying not to shame myself over it. losing battle but trying is the operative word. That leaves logging whatever I eat later tonight and reading. Not bad for it only being 6:15. Now I just need it to be bedtime so I can pass out. Whee.

[Severine]

Is the weather still muggy/hot in Boston? That always made it so much harder to walk outside and is why I almost always walked at night.

 

Want to tell us what book you're reading? No pressure if not. 

 

This reminded me that I wanted to tell you that I think you would like this book, which I adored, and also the second one in the series, which is called 'Hell Bent'. Can elaborate more if you want, but don't want to go on about it without invitation. Basically: Ivy Leage dark academia, rules-based magic, actually good writing, an intelligent plot, interesting themes about who has power and what they do with it, and an endearingly fucked up protagonist who (refreshingly) isn't a Mary Sue. 

[Laghail]

Fleeeeea! Missed your face even though I'm sorry medical stuff is being tricksy.

[fleaball]

hi my name is flea and holy fuck I do not want to go for a walk yall. 
 

15 hours ago, Severine said:

Is the weather still muggy/hot in Boston? That always made it so much harder to walk outside and is why I almost always walked at night.

 

Want to tell us what book you're reading? No pressure if not. 

 

This reminded me that I wanted to tell you that I think you would like this book, which I adored, and also the second one in the series, which is called 'Hell Bent'. Can elaborate more if you want, but don't want to go on about it without invitation. Basically: Ivy Leage dark academia, rules-based magic, actually good writing, an intelligent plot, interesting themes about who has power and what they do with it, and an endearingly fucked up protagonist who (refreshingly) isn't a Mary Sue. 

weather is currently 70s and not muggy but it'll get hotter as the week goes on. But it's good enough that I can't use it as an excuse not to walk lol. 
 

Embarrassingly, I have 8 physical books and 16 e-books checked out rn. I tend to grab anything that looks interesting and then immediately forget that I should probably read them. I'll take screenshots when I'm at my computer later to share them all. Yesterday I started reading Jekyll & Hyde bc after listening to the musical again I realized I'd never read the book. And also a book called Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion which I got like 30 pages into and am meh about. Author is a neuroscientist and thinks meditation is great but he's also a militant atheist who thinks religious people are raging idiots and it's kinda turning me off. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. 
 

I'm always up for book recs, especially fiction! Fanfiction ruined me for actual books but there's nothing I enjoy enough to read fanfiction of right now (fuck Supernatural and its stupid fucking ending) so I'm just avoiding fiction at all bc I'm so picky lol. 
 

5 hours ago, Laghail said:

Fleeeeea! Missed your face even though I'm sorry medical stuff is being tricksy.

[Laghail]

3 hours ago, fleaball said:

And also a book called Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion which I got like 30 pages into and am meh about. Author is a neuroscientist and thinks meditation is great but he's also a militant atheist who thinks religious people are raging idiots and it's kinda turning me off. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. 

 

Oh Sam Harris? I'm very much not a fan of Christianity and even I felt embarrassed for the author with how badly he missed the cultural and social components of religion and spirituality. His overall point seemed to be that all religion is stupid, therefore mindful breathing can solve the yawning chasm of meaning that EVERY CONTINENTAL THINKER wrote about for the last 200 years. Very much a wealthy white dude that discovered meditation and is somehow under the impression that no one else has ever sat in contemplation before him. I also don't think he's ever met a middle- or lower-income person.

Giant fuckwit. Probably well meaning. HUUUUge fuckwit.

 

3 hours ago, fleaball said:

I'm always up for book recs, especially fiction! Fanfiction ruined me for actual books but there's nothing I enjoy enough to read fanfiction of right now (fuck Supernatural and its stupid fucking ending) so I'm just avoiding fiction at all bc I'm so picky lol. 

 

May i introduce you to fanfiction's cousin, serial fiction? My current obsession in serial fiction is Super Supportive - super heroes as a service caste of humans that are combo domestic servants/foot soldiers for the aliens who gave humans super powers, while super heroes are still celebrities/influencers on earth. Brilliant post-colonial retelling of super heroes even while the characters are full realized with lovely banter and pervasive themes around self-sacrifice and self-care.  

 

What are your tastes for fantasy on an action vs introspection axis? Also on a grim perspective vs optimistic perspective? 

[fleaball]

hi my name is flea and I tried to go for a walk but forgot about the part where I'm diabetic and should make sure my blood sugar is not low beforehand. So that happened. >> food has been tracked, words have been read, tasks have been done. Not bad. 

[fleaball]

2 hours ago, Laghail said:

Oh Sam Harris? I'm very much not a fan of Christianity and even I felt embarrassed for the author with how badly he missed the cultural and social components of religion and spirituality. His overall point seemed to be that all religion is stupid, therefore mindful breathing can solve the yawning chasm of meaning that EVERY CONTINENTAL THINKER wrote about for the last 200 years. Very much a wealthy white dude that discovered meditation and is somehow under the impression that no one else has ever sat in contemplation before him. I also don't think he's ever met a middle- or lower-income person.

Giant fuckwit. Probably well meaning. HUUUUge fuckwit.

oh good I'm glad it's not just me. When I saw the subtitle I was like "oh good that's just what I'm looking for" bc I'm def getting too hung up on conflating religion and spirituality and like, how do I do the latter without the former and blah blah my brain focuses on the wrong things all the time.  

 

2 hours ago, Laghail said:

May i introduce you to fanfiction's cousin, serial fiction? My current obsession in serial fiction is Super Supportive - super heroes as a service caste of humans that are combo domestic servants/foot soldiers for the aliens who gave humans super powers, while super heroes are still celebrities/influencers on earth. Brilliant post-colonial retelling of super heroes even while the characters are full realized with lovely banter and pervasive themes around self-sacrifice and self-care.  

this sounds amazing thank you!

 

2 hours ago, Laghail said:

What are your tastes for fantasy on an action vs introspection axis? Also on a grim perspective vs optimistic perspective? 

open to whatever but more on the introspection/optimistic sides. There's enough dystopian bullshit in the world as it is. 
 

I'm really glad we're on nerd fitness right now because I'm excited just by the fact that you're asking those questions.* I'm pretty sure the last book I actually read based on someone's recommendation was 50 Shades of Grey which... yeah. That was a thing that happened. And is probably why I stopped asking people for recommendations.  

*this is not a slight on anyone who's mentioned books before that I haven't read yet, it's definitely a "whee my mindset has changed for some unknown reason and I like what's happening." Which I will be bringing up in therapy tomorrow. 

[Whisper]

15 hours ago, Laghail said:

May i introduce you to fanfiction's cousin, serial fiction? My current obsession in serial fiction is Super Supportive - super heroes as a service caste of humans that are combo domestic servants/foot soldiers for the aliens who gave humans super powers, while super heroes are still celebrities/influencers on earth. Brilliant post-colonial retelling of super heroes even while the characters are full realized with lovely banter and pervasive themes around self-sacrifice and self-care.  

Hot damn that's good!

Two chapters in but really compelling story. 

[Laghail]

14 hours ago, fleaball said:

oh good I'm glad it's not just me. When I saw the subtitle I was like "oh good that's just what I'm looking for" bc I'm def getting too hung up on conflating religion and spirituality and like, how do I do the latter without the former and blah blah my brain focuses on the wrong things all the time.  

 

Big mood. I like Karen Armstrong for sometimes helping me untangle the history of religion and humanities, but she's got her own blindspots for sure. "The history of God" is kinda her grappling with the emergence of organized religion and trying to praise how it has helped the human journey, even with it's many blood baths. She's a god-lover too, formerly a nun before a stint as a Hitchens/Dawkins-style atheist, and now she's sorta writing as theist/humanist/academic. YMMV 

 

14 hours ago, fleaball said:

this sounds amazing thank you!

 

open to whatever but more on the introspection/optimistic sides. There's enough dystopian bullshit in the world as it is. 

 

So there's a cycle of life in serial fiction where an author will have a decent chunk of a story hammered out and hosted for free on the Royal Road website, then they'll get a publishing deal and have to pull the parts of their story as it's published. This next title is had the good luck to get picked up and produced into ebook and audiobook, but we lost our free access to it on Royal Road. Le Sigh.

 

"This Used to be About Dungeons" by Alexander Wales is maybe the most thoughtful take on what a world could be like in a d&d setting. It certainly is a near-utopia, and it's asking why magically gifted and ostensibly well-adjusted people throw themselves at dangerous and unnecessary dungeons, with surprising answers. 

Royal road link with just chapter 1

Amazon link with Kindle unlimited and audible

@Sea-to-sky - the narrator is American ?but she's the gorgeous Zura Johnson ?

 

14 hours ago, fleaball said:

I'm really glad we're on nerd fitness right now because I'm excited just by the fact that you're asking those questions.* I'm pretty sure the last book I actually read based on someone's recommendation was 50 Shades of Grey which... yeah. That was a thing that happened. And is probably why I stopped asking people for recommendations.  

*this is not a slight on anyone who's mentioned books before that I haven't read yet, it's definitely a "whee my mindset has changed for some unknown reason and I like what's happening." Which I will be bringing up in therapy tomorrow. 

 

Yep. I'm trying to front-load reassurances lately that people should reject any recommendation of mine without it impacting my opinion of them. I can't always explain why I bounce off some titles and bond with others, but I'm not interested in arguing with how my brain wants to vibe with a certain book in the evenings. 

Please share anything you've enjoyed lately. I'm enjoying accruing an NF suggested backlog on my TBR. 

[Laghail]

1 hour ago, Whisper said:

Hot damn that's good!

Two chapters in but really compelling story. 

 

The author just published chapter 180 and seems to be going strong! You can check out an authors profile on patreon to see their stats, and Sleyca has an engaged fanbase and seems to be making decent money from the project, fingers crossed!

 

 

The downside of serial fiction is that sometimes the author wanders away from the project before finishing a story (relatable tho). I fell in love with Dressed to Kill when it was on Royal Road, this slice of life story about a seamstress and her crafter buddies who secretly make magical gear from adventurer's trophies hauled out of dungeons, supporting a quiet resistance movement against the excesses of the local feudal system.  Anyway the author got mad at Royal Road or lost interest in the project? I dunno, suddenly my drug of choice stopped showing up every week! Now the finished bits got swept into a published book, but it's been a year and I'm not sure if the author is active anymore. Le sigh.

[Sea-to-sky]

21 hours ago, fleaball said:

I'm always up for book recs, especially fiction! Fanfiction ruined me for actual books but there's nothing I enjoy enough to read fanfiction of right now (fuck Supernatural and its stupid fucking ending) so I'm just avoiding fiction at all bc I'm so picky lol. 

Blame @lagial, he yelled and i appeared to drop random book recs

 

i adore this fantasy series by drew hayes. Super alternative take on an rpg setting from (mainly) the point of view of the npc’s. Very worth having a go with. Has a great sense of humor. 

 

https://www.goodreads.com/series/167002-spells-swords-stealth

[Whisper]

49 minutes ago, Laghail said:

The downside of serial fiction is that sometimes the author wanders away from the project before finishing a story (relatable tho).

There was a story I was reading a few years ago that did that. It was a really interesting sci-fi story, but sadly didn't have much of a following. Author ended up burning out. I'm feeling like looking it up again, it was fun.

[fleaball]

Owwwwwwwie. I'm being a guinea pig for a research study at the hospital and today was the first treatment. It involves using lasers to remove the kind of birthmark I have and I knew it would suck because I did a similar study 20 years ago but goddamn I was not prepared for how it would feel several hours later. Oof. My left thigh is just a whole ball of nope right now. Real glad the one on my face was too small to qualify bc I would probably have died. Not really but kind of. 
 

anyway. Chapters have been read, food has been logged, tasks have been done consistently. Wednesday and Thursday I did not go walking so boo on me. Today I'm counting the hospital trip and also unnecessarily running errands with my father as walking because there's no way I'm going back outside. (Also it occurs to me now that I'm not supposed to expose the treated area to sunlight so that could be a problem. Crap.)

 

I know there are things to respond to but that will have to wait. My brain is fried from having to make small talk for two hours, I got my period unexpectedly which I forgot happens when I'm not on the pill, and it's my mother's birthday which I don't have any particular feelings about but still exists as a ptsd thing so meh. 
 

fun side note before I go, my father is confused as to why I'm participating in this study when I have zero issues with my birthmark existing. I showed him the massacre on my leg largely because I'm an asshole and he's very squeamish and he was like "ugh well I hope it works out." I was like well I hope the study gets something useful out of it but I don't give a shit either way and he was just like ??????? Sir, research only happens when people participate in it. Obviously it helps that I'm getting paid for this but he just doesn't seem to understand going through all this without personally getting something out of it. Must be nice living life with zero concern for anything but yourself. 

[fleaball]

hahahahaha it occurs to me that my mother + my birthmark is also a triggery combination. not a huge one in the grand scheme of things but it's definitely something she had Opinions™️ on so whoops, should not have scheduled for today. Oh well. 

[Whisper]

[fleaball]

Not dead. On the outside anyway. 
 

tasks going well, reading going well but would be better if I stuck with one book instead of bouncing around, and I've shockingly tracked all but one meal even though I hate it so fucking much. 
 

walking has not happened. Partly (+ legitimately) because of the laser thing, partly because the laser thing is a convenient excuse. But for real it's still sore to the touch and clothing rubbing against the treatment area is unpleasant at best. So I've been doing stretches and whatnot instead and trying to avoid pissing it off. I should have known better than to think I'd stick with a walking goal. Although I still need to catch Pokémon so maybe I'll give in anyway >_>
 

here's a photo if anyone is curious. It's not really gross or anything but under a cut in case someone doesn't want to see my skin looking burned. 
 

Spoiler

 

[Whisper]

That does not look comfortable. I don't think I would want clothing rubbing against it either. 

[Severine]

Just wanted to say props for helping medical science. Boston is a great place to contribute to cool medical research. And yeah, eye roll at your dad's lack of comprehension of basic empathy. From everything I know of him, it terrifies me retroactively that he was a cop.

 

It's funny how certain days (anniversaries etc.) can sometimes have an impact even when we don't think they should based on our feelings, or really don't want them to, or whatever. But then other years they don't even register. It's something I don't understand, and I find the unpredictability annoying. Also this is me being 0% shocked that your mother had opinions (I am sure terrible/irritating ones) about an aspect of your physical appearance. 

[fleaball]

Told my father last night that Wednesday's therapy appointment was rescheduled for today at 3. At 3:15 he knocks on my door and I'm caught off guard so I say "I'm in therapy, go away." Now he's butthurt because I said "go away." Which in turn makes me upset because ptsd and not liking when people are mad at me etc. I didn't apologize and I'm not going to because I'm a petty bitch but uggggggh fucking really? 

 

took FK for his monthly vet appointment last week and feel justified in wimping out of the walking goal; it was a very short walk from the car to the office but goddamn did it irritate my awesome laser burns. Reading is happening, although nothing worth sharing. Doing two things a day is happening but true to form I'm not satisfied with just meeting the goal, I'm mad that it hasn't snowballed into totally clearing out my to do list and turning my entire life around. Tracking food is also happening and I hate it but it is what it is. 

 

I still have to post screenshots of my library checkouts like I said I would do two weeks ago but I'm lazy. I also still have to reply to posts here and catch up with people but I'm too pissed off at my father's existence to do so.