QE Results for April 2019

In January I wrote a blog post entitled Queer Eye, My Daughter, and I where I related some of the experience and pleasure I had binge-watching the two season of the show with my daughter over the holiday break, and in doing so basically laid out a self-improvement (or self assessment, at least) plan for the year.  The plan involves taking an honest inventory of where am in life with regards to five categories, as I see them, as exemplified by the men on the Netflix show Queer Eye.  And so, an honest assessment on my performance for April in the five QE categories:

KARAMO: "Culture, Confidence, Put yourself out there". 4.5 stars. I wrote 202 pages, and once again I had to grind it out in the stretch, managing to write 56 pages the last three days of the month--a Pyrrhic victory, really, because those pages are largely crap and few of them are usable fiction. But three cheers for determination.

I made considerable progress on one of the three projects I mentioned last month.

Kim and I had a short vacation in Florida, where I snapped the photo above. We went to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, and dumb luck would have us there on the only day it poured. We met some old friends for dinner and generally had a nice time.

Also, Hachette sent me some copies of the French edition of Brak My Heart 1,000 Times aka I Still See You

Merci Beaucoup!

TAN: "Make an effort with your personal appearance". A raise to 2.5. I bought more clothes on vacation and am generally making an effort more to look presentable when Kim and I go out. I kind of have to though, because I have lost so much weight most of my normal clothes make me look like I am caught in the deflating shreds of a popped hot air balloon. My very sizable love handles have been reduced to love pull tabs, making most of my pants, even beloved blue jeans, into clown pants.

BOBBY: "Create and maintain a physical environment that promotes productivity, creativity and inner harmony". I'm giving myself a raise to 3.5  I did a fair amount of yard work in April--I have a fairly sizable yard. My grandfather Zepherin, and his family before him, was a farmer in the town I know live in--a few years ago I went with my uncle, father, brother and son to see the land where his farm once stood but no longer does. It's less than two miles from my house. In later life he went as far metaphorically from farming as he could by becoming a manager at the plastics plant (which also is no more). He was the most gentle, kind man I ever knew, and I think of him every time I "work the soil"--trimming, clearing, seeding, raking, planting, fertilizing, watering. Watching the birds.

I love yardwork. I phrase I'd never thought I would write or say. When I was a young homeowner I absolutely hated it because I foolishly thought that every minute I spent in the yard was a moment away from writing. Years of experience have taught me that every moment spent in the yard helps encourage growth in the mind as well as in the environment.

We revere corn here. My favorite headline ever...feel the horror!

ANTONI: "Make nutrition healthy and enjoyable, cook for others". I'll take back the half point I lost last month for a 2.5. I'll keep it here. Did a lot of the meal prep but the meals I prepped were fairly pedestrian. Also, I had considerably more adult beverages than in the first three months of the year, most of them on vacation. I started keeping track of how much I drank this year, and in keeping track, it has made me turn the corner from drinking "just because" totruly enjoying adult beverages--I didn't really realize it, but I was drinking quite a bit last year, and probably the couple years before that. Counting the drinks has been instrumental in keeping indulgence under control, and no doubt has facilitated the incredible boost in exercise ability and weight loss. I've never felt better, and now consciously check myself to ask if having a drink or a bag of chips or whatever will add or subtract to that general feeling.

 I'm still adhering to a slightly relaxed form of Austerity (see Secrets of Weight Loss, Revealed), which at this point might mean it is now a lifestyle habit as opposed to a time-bound change.

JONATHAN: "Take care of yourself physically" I'm going to 4.  I ran 143 miles, making April my fourth consecutive +100 month, a feat I'm certain I've never done before in my life. In four months, I've eclipsed my totals for the entire years 2018, 2012, and 2013. I started keeping track of such things in 2011, the year I set my personal best, and I'm on pace to decimate that. I'd say fifty is the new thirty, but I was a fat oaf at 30. 

I've been lifting more, too. I won't make the cut for anyone's powerlifting club, but I'm trying to be consistent and conscious of what I'm doing and I think the upper body stuff is contributing greatly to the overall.

Wow! 17, with gains in three categories in the shortened month. Can self-actualization be very far away???.

Reading/watching/listening posts will soon follow--crazily, especially as April contains Record Store Day, I had far more watching than listening for the month. Factors I'll mention later make me think this will be a continuing trend.

I combine reading and listening, and writing, in my novel Aural History, which you can find HERE, along with my other ghost/zombie/human/punk/metal/sporto novels below...

Thanks fer yer bizness!