Holding at 1561 for now / 38

Rain. Good, long, hard, help-you-sleep rain, pattering all night outside the open window, making a nice clean smell inside. I actually slept thru my usual weird 1:30am wake-up. Woke briefly for the usual 3:30 non-event, but ultimately managed to sleep to 5 - latest I've slept in several days!

MUST join gym now. Sit-ups are helping the "abs," but dunno about "love handles" - I don't think there's an exercise that reduces those, other than overall sweating-out stuff. Be that as it may, weighed in today 11 lbs under my weight at the Dr about two months ago - so now a svelte and compact 214. More, I *feel* "muscular." Not Schwarzenegger-muscular, but maybe closer to Linda-Hamilton-muscular (which really is more my ideal anyway), like there's less fat and more muscle on me, like I have actual *strength*. MUST join gym to maintain this through the rainy season.

Have another book to edit. 88 pages. Should get me through today better than yesterday.

Halloween tomorrow: a night that at times carries for me a boatload of "triggers." I spent a few consecutive halloweens going to the exotic-erotic ball, which had already become something less than its original concept by then, but was still pretty fun insofar as it was one night I could dress up in drag and probably not get beaten up. Even at time looked pretty good, and might even have "passed," as they say. Six or seven years ago, went with a girl on whom I had an unrequited crush... Steve, in auburn wig, black lace teddy, leather mini, lime-green fishnets over purple tights, high-heeled ankle-high boots, with assorted chains and leather hanging on here and there - Pat Benatar meets Stephanie Powers. Or something. Wobbling along with a drink in one hand and a cig in the other, flirting with everything that moved and some that didn't.

You know, no regrets, but also no need to revisit. A period in my life that I look back at now with a mixture of "awe," "aw, shucks," and "awful." Be that as it may, H'ween can STILL (obviously) be a night for drinking and all that goes with it. One of those nights where you get the day off in advance NOT really because it's your birthday but because you know you're gonna wake up late, with a need to assess the damage! How nice, to sit home with a bowl of candy, half-hoping no kids show up so we can eat it all...

It's a strange and wonderful new life. I'm slowly getting used to it.

~1561 / 37

Pretty much a five-mile sprint (well, MY version of a sprint, slightly faster and sweatier than my normal speed) Friday to get to the bus. Slight chance of rain today - any excuse to avoid the usual bike ride! WILL join the gym this week.

Pretty good weekend. No biking, but nice hike on Saturday; pure laziness on Sunday.

The Addiction That Dare Not Speak Its Name, and Life, have thrown me a variety of curveballs (AND spitballs, AND sliders, AND...), but it seems like previous battles with TATDNSIN did prepare me somewhat more for this time, and I'm also going through a whole lot of other crap that seems, in a way, to strengthen my resolve. "That which doesn't kill you blah blah blah." Every single moment is an opportunity to succeed or fail, and trite as it seems, one moment at a time wins the hour/day/week/month.

Still, I often want to just curl up in a ball and hibernate through the next three or four months.

Sleep has been weird, of course. I seem to wake each nite at 1:30 and 3:30, before waking and getting up at 4:30 -- the earliest I can stand to allow myself to get up. On weekends, I then fade again at 12 or 12:30 in the afternoon and again around 6. This will pass, but it's freakin' annoying NOW.

Work should be picking up somewhat now. Being busy will help, I think. I dunno. Sometimes I question why I am doing this. I was on a somewhat pleasant path to oblivion with nothing standing in my way and here I have to go on this self-improvement kick -- for what?

Circular logic: I do it so I can continue to do it.