day drinking

It's a weird state of liberation and confession when drinking. The day today falls away or more accurately is simply forgotten as true desires service and emerge into the conscious. 

It's a nice change. At least for me. It wouldn't say it's an addiction at this point, but it's definitely a preferred mental state of being. 

Inhibitions are definitely reduced. Perhaps the same time Cardinal desires are exposed and let out as if someone scratched the sticker releasing the pheromones out into the air, releasing the thoughts to be consciously considered and honestly assessed.

Logic drops away

It's hard not to be excited by it

Intoxicated by it. No. Not by the alcohol by the freedom. The liberation the honest embrace with self.

I want to travel. I want to explore. I went to Rome and to walk and to drive or do these feelings end up?. Where do They take me?

Is this a look inside my brain or a look from the inside from inside the cell trapped. Out onto possibility?

Scratching the itch feels like progress...

busy brain

At home, you have such easy access to broadband internet which translates to a wide stream of media. Whether it be YouTube audiobooks or music to keep our brains busy 

We call it entertainment and indeed it is but the downside of that is it consumes mental cycles in our brain. While it does entertain our conscious brain on the subconscious side, it effectively eliminates the ability for our brain to process in the background 

I'm not a neuroscientist just trying to speak from what I notice in my own life, but it's impressive to see that part of the braid reawaking when I'm stuck driving for an hour or two without internet in my car is not able to stream music to me 

And don't get me wrong. I'm a passionate advocate for music. It taps into a deeper part of my soul that I can't access otherwise and makes you want to dance. Create smile, love, cry, deep core things to who I am as a human and that I want to maintain in my life 

But at the same time it pushes another input into our brain that requires processing. It requires that our subconscious be working all the time to handle this year. Volume of information we're throwing at it 

At first, the long stretches of driving without music are difficult. My conscious brain wants that entertainment feed. It wants something new to play with to keep itself busy. Perhaps to distract it 

But after a while maybe it's in the first 30 minutes. Maybe it's on day three of intermittent blocks of driving with no music or media input. But after that. The brain gets bored and starts to play with itself 

At first, it's silly things wondering about packing or the next meal or what someone said, but that's just the beginning of your subconscious reawaking and starting to process. It's long laundry list of things that it needs to work through. 

They dance summer between subconscious and conscious bubbling up in a seemingly random order as if bubbles popping out of the top of a violent mud pit in Yosemite Park 

On the surface they transition from subconscious to conscious and we have an opportunity to see what's happening 

To see what our brain has been working on. Worried about curious about frustrated by and all of that. 

The things that bubble up seem to be the things that your mind feels like we need to work on in the conscious world and it's kind of like a handoff where when those idea bubbles come up to the surface and pop, the conscious brain has the opportunity to assess it. Maybe it's a left brain right? Brain type of thing. I'm not totally sure, but some of my most creative ideas have come from moments. 

They're not random. It's something that you're subconscious has been processing and sometimes it's just something it needed to work through in the background to make sense of something, but even those have value in popping them up to your conscious brain and letting it realize as well that whatever it was trying to figure out why the dog pooped indoors or why your package didn't show up or maybe why you've been procrastinating paying that DMV. Bill, but whatever it is in my experience it can be worth taking that in your hand as if looking at a shiny new rock, turning it over and looking at it from a few different angles, then deciding what you want to do with it. 

Some of those gems go in my conscience to-do list like an idea for a new vehicle build or solution to a programming challenge I've been working on. While others I simply look at and toss back onto the ground, they were beautiful. I was glad to have seen them but it's not something I need to take with me or carry with me. 

It can be just that one off zany idea that's completely impractical or perhaps just makes you laugh. But it's neat. It's a part of you. It came from you. These are your ideas that your brain has been creating and working on 

Maybe there's a tie to the verbal nonverbal part of the brain. The subconscious is the nonverbal part of the brain where it's processing things in the background in ideas on a more primal level. Perhaps an emotional level as well, but it figures things out and pops them up to the conscious. What I'll call the verbal layer of the brain where we can then kind of see the idea, take shape out of the mist and put words to it. 

omfg i found it

 life is an odd thing. we are born and know nothing. we don't know that we know nothing and are totally cool with that fact. as pre-humans, we learn by default. how to eat, what mom smells like, not to eat our fingers, that we can't taste our toes, and how to crawl. 

we explore the world around us, increasingly so as our capabilities increase. 

i don't really know when i first realized i was a person or gained consciousness. i suppose it was when i was born but early life is really pretty fuzzy some 43 years and change later. we are fed what people think we should eat or what they want us to eat. we do what people make us to and later, what we are told to do. 

we enter school and are funneled through a lazily organized sequence of bored instruction delivered by largely unattentive, paid drones. they care for us, mostly make sure we are fed, clothed, and awake and emerge out the other end of the experience with a stamp of approval that says something to the tune of "yep, this one was conscious and can at least flip burgers as a productive member of society."

we're taught to be on autopilot for a dozen years or more depending on one's tolerance for rote instruction. paying more for education likely translates to a better outcome or maybe just a feeling of entitlement. either way, we're not really fully formed until 25 or maybe even 30. it's a strange process. 

the creation of mandatory formal schooling surely had good intentions but at scale, often withers and delivers underwhelming results. i'm definitely underwhelmed at myself and have been for most of my life.

after schooling, we frantically cast our net around us, much like pre-walking babies casting their arms out in search of something new to shove into their mouths but in our new adult-sized bodies, we are now in search of jobs. in reality, all we want to do is procreate without result and party, but all of that requires money. we are the primate in the jungle banging on our chests. instead of chest hair and exposed ball sacks, we instead show off our fancy cars, nice clothes, and gym-shaped bodies. 

unlike the monkey in the jungle, our cars, clothes, abs, and overpriced dinners serve very little functional purpose. 

we slog through and get jobs. we advance on merit, tenure, or on the coat tails of relationships we've cultivated and life goes on. decades perhaps. it does fly. we don't really know why we're doing it, but we're told to move up, find a job at a reputable company people can brag about and to just keep our head down and plow forward. up and up, young one. 

add a wife, a few kids, a house, dog, and all the thanksgiving trimmings and now you're fully locked into the game.

decades later.

time passes. 

retirement becomes the topic of discussion but it is yet again a dead end road. we live to work to save to not work to die. what a shakesperian tragedy. 

the magic is in the story

we get to write our own story

rewind the story of your life and take up the pen

whatever stage you find yourself in, it is yours

this one thing

this brain, body, feet, shoes, and clothes

none of it matters

we all end up in the dirt

we all end up dirt

its just the way of it

enough longing

enough wanting, hoping, wishing

time for action

now

go

barca ad finitum

I'm stuck in barcelona for what seems like forever. I was done with this city and this country by the time I checked into my hostel. hostel. that was an infinitely terrible decision

I need to get better at spending a little more for a slightly better quality of life. going cheap to stay in a hostel really bit me in the ass on this one. I missed out on an amazing flight and experience in vietnam. what an idiot. 

I guess we'll see if Sokny also has COVID, in which case it could have just been a barcelona thing, accentuated by the hostel stay and my 2 extra days of incubation. 

Whatever

I'm here, I'm feeling mostly fine...very mild symptoms of a tame cold. in fact, I've had tons of colds that were much worse than this. But this...this thing...it prevents me from flying or safely traveling. Imagine being "stuck" in barcelona or anywhere in europe but still being able to travel. Shit. I'd head north along the mediterranean sea to Nice, Monaco, etc...and just rock it. or south to morocco. or east to Lisbon. 

Maybe that's what's so painful about this. There is so much opportunity to see, experience, live...and I'm caught up in the virtual jail of my hotel room. I guess I could just give it up and say fuck it...and travel in the EU. they don't even check passports or IDs, let alone COVID vaccinations or any of that when you cross borders here. 

Maybe i'll do that if it drags on much longer. Today: mild fever, light scratchy throat. ugh. 

At least we can affor it and it's not a real financial burden. 

I need to put some serious thought into getting our finances better setup on autopilot so I don't spend so much brain power thinking about and half-assedly managing it. I know tesla. that's it. I'm good with numbers and can facilitate getting our stuff in order. 

Hmm...

I'll set a goal of interviewing ~5 "financial advisors" that are fiduciaries and pick 1-3 to move forward with when I get home

solo frustration

fucwe all feel inadequate in our own skin

everyone else is cooler than we are

those who are confident are better than us

pushing past that, we all have our inner freaks

it's the amazing part of each of us, where we can finally blow the lid off this shit and cut loose.

find people, places, things, animals, whatever the fuck it is...that help you cut loose.

music is a huge part of that for me

music taps into something deep within my soul

I need more music in my life

it's like therapy

It makes my soul sing...or vibrate with the broader themes running around the world.

so many songs resonate and flow around the lyrics

the song flows by and the beat hit hard and i always think about youi

but you dont want and you dont fuck and you dont think about me

I'm thinking about level 10 fucking but it always ends up being a -2

how can you end up lower when you get what you want but its just not the same

sex is like pizza and i really like pizza because just about no matter what that shit's pretty damn good

just about any sex is good sex but sex with you just isn't usually that great

it's like fucking a blow up doll that doesnt really give a fuck about giving me a fuck

Do you really give a fuck when you're giving a fuck? 

sometimes a fuck is just a fuck

sometimes a duck just won't cluck 

but I'm not going to fuck that duck if it doesn't give a fuck

so tired of not giving a fuck about getting fucked. 

it's like cardboard

I could never have imagined being this bored

with this many options

quit my job because who needs it

shit is a variable and sometimes that's fun, yo

omg

music is the pulse of life

throbbing when you need it

banging up new peaks, pumps, breaks and bumps

this shit is life

give me a bottle of wine and a banging beat and most nights, I'm rocking at my peak.

What to do with all that?

so let's get down, let's get down to business

songs get my juices flowing.

they make me want to move

need to move

I need to learn piano

that shit is the underpinnings...the fundamentals...of so much EDM and other music.

include reading sheet music 

we've had a million, million nights just like this.

I'll give you one more night,  one more night you got this.

you've had a million, million nights just like this

so let's get down, let's get down to business

oooh yeah, yeah

i remember when sex used to be a mutual thing

it's almost as if she gave up on it when....

but she did

she quit

made it all about me

that's fucked up

relationships aren't like that

they have to be mutual to function

we have to aspire to enjoy what we both enjoy

I think

 

Project: Rebuild Your Life

The last 2 weeks and change have been crazy...and it all started with a text message. My brother in law Zach pinged me about the Thomas Fire which all other sources said was just a small thing north of Santa Paula. He said that it was moving fast and might even be passing his house in East Ventura. I went out and lookup up at the sky and saw all that I needed to know - smoke billowing down out of the north and being pushed right over the top of our house.

I cautiously split our emergency kit gear between our two cars and prepped them to be loaded up. Another glance upwards a few minutes later showed that the situation wasn't getting better and with the gusting winds picking up, was bound to get worse. I went up and woke Sokny up to get her up to speed on the situation and as the sleep worked its way out of her eyes, she started to pack up some of her things as well.

We had the kids sleeping in the living room for a sleepover with daddy that night which put them in the best spot possible to be staged for easy loading into the car. The power begun to cut out...then on...then out...taking our already spotty internet up and down with it. A few more glances up at the sky made it clear that it was likely we would have to leave so we started packing up some things for the kids, clothes and some key electronics.

As the power continued to flutter on and off, I handed out flashlights and staged battery powered lights around the house to allow us to continue our preparations without having to stumble around more than necessary. I shared with Sokny that we needed to be 5-minute ready...ready to leave with 5 minutes notice which was barely enough time to get the kids in the car and go.

That point came sooner than either of us expected as the next check outside revealed a strong orange glow emanating from a point just over the ridge to the north east of our housing tract. I quickly ran across the street in my socks to wake our neighbors with 4 kids at the same time noting that most of the neighborhood was completely devoid of activity, with only a handful of lights visible from other souls who had been alerted to the proximity of the fire...or perhaps just responding to the lack of power in the area.

As the orange glow brightened even more, we carefully loaded the kids into the car with their backpacks, blankets and pokemon cards to keep them company. They didn't have a chance to pick out anything to bring but as a consolation, they didn't have to experience the tense rush out of the house consciously.

The power was out so after we backed out of the garage, I disconnected the connection to the automatic door opener and eased the door down into place, which thunked down with all the finality of a tombstone. We eased down the street, into the flow of a handful of early adopters who similarly feared what the later hours of the night might bring to our homes.

It dawned on me that many of our neighbors had not been alerted to what seemed to be imminent danger so I cautiously gave the horn a few honks wondering if when the morning came, I would be remembered as the village idiot or the town hero. As we rounded another dark corner, I sounded the horn a few more times with a bit more confidence. As we went down the final stretch of the neighborhood, I was at full confidence, sounding the horn to alert any and all who dared sleep that something was amiss in the hopes that they would realize what was coming over the hill to consume the beds in which they now slept.

We evacuated to my parent's house just a few minutes down the hill and set the kids up for what seemed like a fun sleepover with the grandparents. Sokny and I wouldn't find much sleep that night, with the police scanner reminding us of the rush of activity to and from our neighborhood and those near us on the hills of Ventura.

As the night wound down, the winds continued to stoke the fire. At its peak, the fire moved as quick as 200' per second, carried on winds gusting at up to 80 miles per hour. From my parent's house, we could see the fire dancing across the hills, making them seem like a playground for a fire-breathing dragon. It was a tense night as we attempted to decipher cryptic calls to remote fire teams to various 'blocks' around town.

At 3am, our bodies gave out and we succumbed to sleep, waking just a few short hours - that would be easier quantified in minutes - later to more of the same. The fires continued, with the daylight only serving to remove

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April still feels like march

I don't really understand the inner workings of my mind. For the last 2 years, my brain has felt full, slow, overwhelmed and warm. Like someone squeezed a pack of handwarmers and set it in there under my brain...it's just too much.

First, the cancer. When I first found out I had cancer, it was so fast...from diagnosis to the right radical orchiotomy (removal of a testicle) that it was essentially a non-issue.

When it came back a few months later, I was excited because it meant time off work...and that should have been way more of a trigger than it was at the time. It was a relief that I didn't have to continue in the hell that work had become. Working 14 hours + per day as many days/week as I could fit in. So stressed out that I couldn't sleep more than a few hours per night which only made it that much worse.

Neither brains or bodies function well without enough sleep. The cancer coming back meant I had to undergo chemotherapy...I think it was a BEP cocktail bleomycin, etopside and cisplatin and boy was that gnarly stuff. It took all my energy away and made me feel sick. Truthfully, I was spared most of the terrible symptoms associated with chemo but it still wasn't much fun. I did have fun cracking jokes at people who instantly become overly sensitive about everything because chemo is awkward. I'm the same person...but my body has been poisoned...by doctors...on purpose...over and over and over for 9 weeks.

But yeah, I was happy for it. I gleefully drove out of the P&G Oxnard plant the day before chemo, absolutely stoked and feeling free as a bird. It was only supposed to be 9 weeks...then extended to 12 with a few weeks for recovery, but it felt amazing. To be honest, if I had to pick between staying at P&G in that role with that leadership team or chemo, I'd take chemo any day. It saved my life...and not just from cancer.

Before I was forced to take time off, the stress, the insanity of how much they put on me without any support felt normal. It sucked, yes...but it felt normal. Leaving for 2 months...3 months and what ultimately was 6 months was the best thing that ever happened because it was a long enough break that it showed me what life without stress was like. I wasn't as stressed about the cancer as I was about work. With cancer...through chemo and later, surgery, I was able to sleep fine. I was able to breathe fine without feeling like I had a bag of cement on my chest.

In the middle of chemo, I became sick and had a chest xray to check on that...and they found that the tumors in my lungs had not changed in size at all. Because I had a 'mixed' cancer, it was likely that it was going to require chemo and surgery to remove as half of the cancer responds to the chemo and half wouldn't. The lumps in my chest were the non-responsive type and required surgery.

Thankfully, all 3 tumors were in the lower lobe of my right lung which was removed (right lower lobectomy) at the skillfull hand of a da vinci robot, controlled by the leading surgeon in the field in Santa Monica, California. We were excited that the robotic surgery was an option as the alternative was to cut open an incision between two ribs and spread me open, making a larger scar, and required a longer time to heal.

The surgery wasn't stressful except for the hour or so leading up to it. Moving into the operating room was freaky and I definitely could have used some anti-anxiety medication but I went to sleep and woke up with stitches and a tube coming out of my lung. The details aren't important but suffice it to say that it went as planned and I was back up and at 'em in no time.

I returned to work a few months later and that's when it really hit home. Immediately, P&G resumed dumping work on me and the stress came back within a matter of days. It was as if I was watching the whole thing on TV. The amount of stress they put on each other and accepted there was comical. I had a hard time taking it seriously because it was just so absurd. Not so much because of what the work was but because of how they treated it.

Work is work and I have never had a hard time doing work...hard, dirty, long...whatever. Get it done and get on with it. But the way the leadership treated the rest of the staff there was embarrassing. That wasn't the company I grew up in or the kind of company I wanted to work for. I pushed back a bit as change only happens when people with vision drive the change and see it through to completion but I simply did not have the energy...physically or otherwise...to do that and I knew it.

The residual effects of the chemo would last nearly 2 years before I felt normal again and I was still in the very early stages of that process. Within 2 weeks of returning to work, it was clear that it wasn't going to be long term for me...even after spending more than 17 years with P&G. It blew my mind but I've never been one to linger or reminisce once a decision has been made.

I started lining up options and paving the road out of P&G. I was back at P&G just over 2 months before I put in my notice and left the company on April 27th, 2017.

With all that has transpired, my brain has changed. It feels like aging but I'm not willing to accept it. I attribute it to part chemical thrashing from the chemo. I'm not clear on how much of that is long term damage and how much is short term damage...or if this is even a factor. I don't think the much hyped detoxes actually do anything though it may be worth a shot.

Another part of this is just the sheer volume of stress crap that I've piled on over the last few years with the first round of cancer in 2015, the second round of cancer in 2016-17 including chemo and surgery, quitting P&G, the fire burning our house, moving, rebuilding...or something else? Relationship stress? Dunno. Life is crazy. I wish it came with a manual...but it would probably be wrong anyways...or I wouldn't read it :)

Sorting all of this out...maybe a blog or introspective journal is the right format, maybe not. I suppose it helps to talk through it with myself which is what I liken this to. Perhaps even better would be a therapist that knew the questions to ask, the pain points to look for and the roads leading outward and upward from it. It's not pain so much as it is just clutter in my head. It would be nice if I had a pressure release valve or lever I could pull to purge the buildup from my head.

I'm leaning into Tim Ferriss' books and podcasts for sharp lessons and poignant observations into life, functionality and effectiveness for clarity. Some of his stuff is great. Most is mediocre. That's life. Most of it is mediocre. Some of it is great...and that's ok. It's more likely that the mediocre stuff of his just isn't relevant or as relevant to me at this point in my life. Maybe that will change. Maybe it won't and that's ok, too.

I think daily journaling and some form of meditation would be helpful. Maybe I need to start taking my phone into the sauna after working out to listen to podcasts while I steam. That's another Tim thing...something about raising the core temp of the body after a workout to help it heal and minimize soreness after tough workouts. I'm leaning into daily protein shakes to minimize the muscle loss that seems to be eating away at my physique. Not sure why physique matters...I just want to be highly functional both at the mental and physical levels. Not so much to climb a mountain or run a marathon...but to hike what I want to hike, when I want to hike it. 

The Beauty of the Burn

Fire brings destruction but it also brings heat, warmth, cooked food and cleansing. When the Thomas Fire consumed our family home the morning of December 5th, 2017, we were shocked. We evacuated knowing that it was the safe thing to do but had no way of knowing that we would be back a few short hours later to find little more than a pile of rubble where our home, hot tub and comfy couches had been.

Losing our things was rough at first. It fuzzed up our heads, leaving us confused and overwhelmed. Did we really just lose our home? Are all our things really gone? It took a few days but when that reality set in, it was like a weight dropped onto our backs. So much work to do to find a place to stay, figure out what we would do for food, snacks, underwear and slacks and that was only the beginning.

No tools, laptop chargers, stickers or beds for our boys. It wasn't so much an emotional journey but a stark confrontation with the magnitude of the task at hand. We were together and left an hour or so before the mandatory evacuation so we were all physically safe and healthy which was by far the biggest blessing from the entire experience.

As we sorted through random donations and ran errands for hours on end, the tables turned. We encountered an entire community that had faced the Thomas Fire together. Our entire community stayed up all night watching as it danced around the hillsides, at times moving as fast as one acre per second, buffeted by 80 mile-per-hour winds that carried ash in overhead rivers of fire.

We discovered beauty in the ashes. Not of our home...as not much was left there...but the ashes spread around our community. As friends and family rinsed the ash off of their cars and homes, they were compelled to pour out onto those who, like us, lost everything. We were humbled by the outpouring of support from family and friends

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