August is a Gone!

I was going to use August is a Bust because bust can mean over, but I didn't want you all to feel like the whole month of August was just a failure because that's not really true and *gasp*.....

(Had terrible insomnia last night after two nights of pretty bad insomnia so I'm right on the edge of manic right now. As if you couldn't already tell. Just a warning to buckle up because this could be a really jangly blog.) 

Okay, so anyway. 

August is done, man. 

Feels kind of funny to be checking in on goals after writing my yearly intentions birthday blog that I was just going to do things instead of track them. But I still have the balance of 2023 to get through and check off those goals before entering my year of being. 

Reading: For the memoir/bio I actually ended up with two because the Fantastic Stranglings pick was a series of personal essays too. So I read Pageboy by Elliot Page and Congratulations, the Best is Over! by R. Eric Thomas. I enjoyed the Elliot Page book. It was interesting because I often check reviews after I finish a book to see what other people thought about it and there were a lot of people who thought he didn't really reveal anything. He didn't get personal. Hunh...I mean, he talked about how he felt growing up, he talked about his early years in the Canadian arts industry and then in Hollywood and how disconnected he felt from the Pretty Princess they kept trying to mold him into. He talked about the number of times people tried to get him to dress differently, or act differently. He talked about his parents. He talked about his childhood. He talked about relationships and coming out first as a lesbian then later as trans and what those experiences were like, how they differed from each other in people's reactions and support. He talked about a lot. What he didn't talk about was if he was getting bottom surgery or not. So my guess is basically what these people wanted was more detail about his privates. Which, they are called privates for a reason. 

The R. Eric Thomas book was interesting in a different way. It was a Fantastic Stranglings book so it was an automatic read for me as part of my yearly goals. I read the first couple and was like, wait, I think I "know" this guy. Looked up his name on Goodreads and saw that I had read his first book. And only gave it three stars. It was just okay for me. I didn't connect with him that much and I didn't find them as funny as other people did. I would never have picked up the second book if it hadn't been a Stranglings choice. And...that would have been fine. I still don't really connect with him or find him all that funny. Though this book wasn't marketed as humorous (I don't think) so maybe they've stopped pushing that angle. 

I wrote about the self help already, enjoyed it, not really all that much of a self help book. Still counts. 

As far as numbers go my goal for 2023 was 60 books and I finished my 60th book on Tuesday. Since I still have the three monthly musts for the balance of the year I think I'll go in and adjust my goal to 72, which would then put me 13 books ahead of schedule. 

Writing went well. Hit my numbers for the month even with the travel at the beginning. I'm not sure I'm going back to the long story I started back in January for my exchanges with Dana. At least for a few weeks I think it's going to be quick hit prompted writing there. Probably the same for here. Though spooky season is upon us and that's normally a pretty fertile time for me. For some reason people hanging up skeletons and wearing all black is inspirational. I'm ahead by 25 nonfiction pieces and 2 fiction (plus a few banked and that whole long incomplete story as well). I think I'll actually hit that stretch goal, but I'm still not 100% positive because there is a lot of year left to hit a wall. 

How optimistic! 

Still not drinking. Don't know how long that will stick, but for now it's working for me. 

Almost completely tapered off of the HRT still debating on if I start the new regimen or not. 

Facebook slid right back into too much by the end of the month. Need to figure out how to balance that out as enough but not too much. You all are just too interesting and great time wasters.

Workouts were good not great. Had some scheduling issues so nothing drastic, just some skips here and there. Trying to get the right cardio/weights balance there as well. Thinking about joining a gym again, there are a couple of machines I just dearly miss and haven't been able to replicate easily with home workouts. Always a bit weird to me that somewhere along the line I turned into the sort of person who has favorite gym equipment. 

I would be setting September mini goals here, but instead it will just be tracking the reading and writing to maintain those 2023 numbers but not adding anything else. The self help book is Deep Work, and funny aside on this one. I read a post the other that made me just laugh and shake my head in that smash the fucking patriarchy way... Books geared toward women improving themselves are published as self help books. Books geared toward men improving themselves are marketed as business books. And yes, you can argue that business books (like Deep Work) aren't just for men, and books about being more emotionally present aren't just for women, but the covers, the blurbs, the authors all say otherwise. Good thing I'm gender fluid in my reading. 

The memoir is The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing and Healing. A few chapters in and it's already a bit rough. But stories about addiction usually are. 

The Fantastic Strangling book I can't remember the title of, but it won't be released for a bit, and it's on all of the "most anticipated Fall books" lists, so we will see if I can get it from the library in time to read for September. 

September is looking to be busy otherwise, end of the soccer season, beginning of hockey and college football and a few musicals and plays in there as well. Roll on Fall!