Wow, I’m posting something in this blog. Surprise! Hello.
You may recall that back at the beginning of the year I made a promise to myself (and to you! yes, you) that I would take 15 minutes out of my lunch break each day to post a small article here, or store up some words toward a larger, multi-day post. Clearly that hasn’t happened, primarily because I made some other promises to myself at the beginning of the year. One of them — to improve my health — has superseded the others and, it turns out, is mutually incompatible with the blogging plan I laid out.
A big part of my health efforts involves those “better food choices” you always hear about, and unfortunately that means instead of slapping a sandwich in the grill at lunch I’ve taken to eating fresh salads every day. The process of chopping up ingredients for a good salad, I’m afraid, fills those 15 minutes I had allotted to myself for blogging. Those avocados and peppers and cucumbers aren’t going to slice themselves, you know.
I admittedly took a half-hearted approach to getting back into shape for the first three months of the year, eating only somewhat more cautiously and thinking frequently about how I should exercise more (though without actually converting intent into action). Then, sometime in April, there came a day in which I found myself at the hospital to provide moral support as my wife’s cousin made her first visits to the oncologist, and while I was there received emails from a friend who was being harassed online, and then a phone call from my mother letting me know my father had been admitted to the emergency room with what appeared to be a severe heart problem. (It wasn’t, and he’s fine. So’s the friend. And the cousin-in-law has had an incredibly successful chemotherapy regimen.) Anyway, everything was fine until a minor crisis popped up at work the next afternoon and suddenly all the stress of the previous day caught up with me. I became lightheaded and realized I could hear the sound of my heart beating in my ears. I followed up on a suspicion and checked my blood pressure to find it was somewhere between “heart attack” and “fire hose.”
I figured it might be cool not to die young, so that was when I decided to get my act together, even if it meant letting this poor blog crumble into dust. So it goes. I may have squandered a website I worked hard on for a decade and a half, but I’ve lost a bunch of weight and have pretty healthy blood pressure again, so that’s good. Plus, the 50 minutes I spend on my elliptical machine each day before lunch has taken me through all the X-Men and Pixar movies as well as the first season of Star Trek. It’s nice to consume media for non-work purposes; I’d forgotten what it was like.
Another factor behind GameSpite’s hiatus: Trying to wrap up overdue obligations. I’ve made a lot of progress, even if it’s been slower than I’d hoped. For example, I finished up my portions of the Retronauts Kickstarter DVD over the weekend, at long last. I’ve completed several individual commissions, too. I still have some outstanding commitments, but the list keeps getting smaller.
With luck, I hope it’ll become small enough that I can start focusing a little effort here again. I have so many LP reviews and Star Trek commentaries filed away in my head that I need to convert into actual text! What, you believed me when I said I was consuming media for non-work purposes? Nah, I’m a compulsive essayist. I mentally compose an article about pretty much everything I see or do. It’s a sickness, probably, but it does come in handy, what with my career as a writer and all. I just gotta carve out 15 minutes a day somehow so I can relocate that stuff from brain to keyboard.
Thanks for sharing. Glad you’re doing better.
whoa. glad you’re doing better, parish.
Good job with the healthy eating and exercising! This past January I made a resolution to lose weight and I’ve actually kept it. I’ve lost fifty-seven pounds so far. It does feel a lot better not being as heavy. Glad you’re doing better and getting things done too.
Congratulations on getting healthy again, Jeremy. I did the same thing a few years back and was doing very well until I let things kinda go to hell fairly recently and I’m dealing with serious blood pressure (and other) issues from stress and anxiety again. You’re kind of inspiring me to get back to where I had been previously. I appreciate whenever you write on this blog and I always read, no matter how irregular it is. Thanks so much for all you do.
A lot of people sneer at the Soylent powder, but it’s been a real time-saver for most of my work meals. And since I’m about the pickiest eater this side of a toddler, it’s the only way I’m able to consume healthy vitamins & nutrients.
Not as satisfying as Real Food, but a good replacement for at least a few of your meals while you’re busy during the work week.
I’m not going to sneer at that stuff… but it is the furthest possible thing from my current dietary approach, which is to avoid processed food as much as possible. I haven’t gone paleo or anything extreme like that, but living on a powder is definitely the opposite of how I’m trying to eat these days.
Anything that keeps you healthy enough to keep writing about unknown monochrome Japanese action puzzlers is good news to me!
Seriously – congrats on buckling down and getting healthier. On my list for next month as I’m moving to a much hotter climate and would rather not be covered in sweat every time I walk out the door.