July Wrap!

And July is done! (again, in about 12 hours or so but close enough)

How did it go? 

Reading: the bio/memoir: ended up reading two. The first one was No Job for a Man by John Ross Bowie, he's an actor but I started paying attention to him from his Instagram posts. Old punk rocker with that super strong social justice, in your face, vibe. I love his posts. His book was really good. He's very Gen X, I said his book review could probably just be "Whatever" and it would fit. A lot of shared touchstones, but he was a punk in New York City so he was what we all wanted to be. 

The second one was Everything All at Once by Stephanie Catudal. She's married to Tommy Rivs (runner I've written about before) and is Phil Catudal's sister (personal trainer I follow for his super positive outlook on life as much as really straight forward fitness tips). Her style of writing was something to get used to. Very much spiritual deep thought style. But it was enjoyable once I got past the really overwrought stuff. Her father died of lung cancer when she was younger and the book is written alternating between that time period, her growing up dealing (not dealing) with that and then Rivs getting cancer as well. Emotional read for sure.  

I told you about the self help book already...ugh.

The Fantastic Stranglings book (How Can I Help You by Laura Sims) was good. I'm not sure if it made Brent super comfortable, it's a story about a writer and a serial killer and you aren't sure by the end who is the real bad guy... 

I am 17 books ahead of schedule. Read a handful of comic collection books I've had on my side table for awhile. They are books even if they take about 30 minutes to read. And they for sure fall into that "read some of the books I already own instead of new" so....But yeah, it pushed me from 9 ahead of schedule to 17 ahead. Which is great, gives me even more wiggle room if I pick up a long book or a slow read. 

Writing is still on track. I banked an extra fiction pieces so I'm up two for the year (plus the ones I haven't published that I've been writing to send to Dana) and I'm up 26 nonfiction. So nicely braced there as well.

Did nothing but cardio for July. Not sure if it will break me out of the ennui when I pick back up weights in August but it was a nice break. Knowing that no matter how much I might not be excited to workout that it was going to take less than an hour and it would be done was great. 

Weaning off of the HRT so I'll need to pick up that weight training for sure because the loss of estrogen means loss of muscle tone. 

Dry July was easy peasy lemon squeezy. I am definitely in a sober stretch. I've gone years before where I just didn't drink and I think I've entered another cycle of that. Like I mentioned last month, the whole poison thing is bugging me more than it's not. And with letting go of HRT the effects are a lot worse for me. Like drinking causes hot flashes for me so why do that? I don't think I'm going completely sober, but I won't drink often. And since I don't miss it not often could be mai tais in Hawaii only. We will see. 

And the big change, the Facebook diet. How did that go? 

Well...good and bad. As it usually is. Like I said, I was still going to check in, and I did. When I'd post a blog I'd go poke around Facebook a little. Made a small handful of comments but not status updates. Also made sure to check notifications for my blog. I realized after the first few posts that I hate putting out the blog and having no feedback. Especially when it's a fiction piece. Oh my gosh...that was not okay. So I turned on notifications and treated that as something different than Facebook proper. 

I missed things. Updates on what people are doing. I really like the day to day things. What movies are you seeing, what vacations are you taking, what shoes did you wear. I miss that when I'm not on a lot. I did not miss the ads and the recommended posts and the people commenting on things with ignorant comments. I also didn't pick fights where I might have, or lecture where I thought about it. Which I think probably made a few of your lives better. 

I'm going to start posting again today, even though it's not technically August here. But I think August will be an ease in, lighter amount of posting, less time online overall still. I just have to figure out what that looks like. I don't want to go full bore. But I also don't want to walk away completely. Even though I've already had a lot of friends who have left Facebook, or social media altogether I still have a lot that haven't. And Threads and Instagram just don't give me the same level of connection that Facebook does. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. 

So August? Keep moving forward with writing and the reading blocks. The self help this month is a book about Wellness Culture so sort of a self help, sort of not, but I'm hoping it will be interesting. Readying Pageboy by Elliot Page as the bio/memoir. Looking forward to that one. I haven't gotten the title yet for the Fantastic Stranglings books so it might be another one that is a challenge to get in time depending on when she announces. 

Also have a family trip to Michigan, an upcoming uterine biopsy (oh fucking joy), and the basics of getting through the emotional quagmire that is August. 

I mean...yay...August.