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!

QE 2: January Results, Writing, and the Owl

He Whoo Watches and Waits

In January I wrote a blog post entitled Queer Eye, My Daughter, and I that 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. A year, by the way, that I will--Lord willing and the creek don't rise--celebrate a half century of haunting this earth. 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, known to fans as the Fab Five. There's a certain value in "reporting out", both in terms of the accountability doing so provides and in the added motivation to not look like a chump for poor performance, plus there might also be a little thrill of pride to be felt when one performs well, as I believe I did in January. And so, an honest assessment on in the five QE categories:

KARAMO: In my previous definition of what Karamo represents, I failed to mention that a key component is how cultured one is, how open to new experiences, and by extrapolation I would add how intellectually aggressive. These characteristics, coupled with taking responsibility, being self confident, and putting yourself out there make the Karamo scale of key importance in driving one's overall QE score (and as I mentioned in the previous post, could be the most limiting if one's initial score is high!) For January, I'm giving myself a four and half. I read fifteen books, and more importantly to myself, and I would guess to most people following this blog because they found it after reading one of my novels, I wrote two-hundred forty one and a half pages this month, which is a personal best since I've been tracking such things. That's 241.5, and it includes a bunch of chapters on a new YA novel which my agent seems enthused about. 241.5 pages would be enough pages for a short novel if it was all one project and all fiction, which it isn't, but as the duration and output of writing is the single biggest factor to my overall happiness, I'm very happy I was a writin' fiend in January. As "putting myself out there", what little I'm doing is all virtual, but five blog posts (included in my page count) and periodic social media posts (not included in my page count) is more than I usually do.

TAN: "Make an effort with your personal appearance". I gave myself a 1 when I started, I'm raising that to 1.5 for January because I bought some new clothes and a watch I really like. I might have given myself a two but I haven't actually worn the clothes, or left the house except for work, a couple dates with Kim, and my trip to the Book Barn. I'm writing this now in a fifteen year old pair of sweatpants and an even older XL Haunted Mansion t-shirt, which now looks like a billowing circus tent on me (more on that later),

I did wear the watch, though. I love it. I got it off eBay.

I know what time it is

BOBBY: "Create and maintain a physical environment that promotes productivity, creativity and inner harmony". I was a three last time and a three in January, although I received from my mother in law that wicked sweet owl in the photo at the top whoo now watches over me when I work, and the bottle next to him is "Phantasm", which a good friend gave me to celebrate the release of I Still See You. The wine was fantastic.

ANTONI: Make nutrition healthy and enjoyable, cook for others. I'll go from 2 to 2.5 here. My Austerity diet is a weird time for me (see Secrets of Weight Loss, Revealed) because I eat next to nothing, but I have cooked a great deal in January, mainly stir fries and exotically spiced roast vegetables.  But Kim ate some of the stuff that I made and I thought it was great, so half a point seems fair.

JONATHAN: I'm giving myself a full point here, going from a two to a three. "Take care of yourself physically"--I had a personal best in terms of miles run in a month at a little over 155 miles, which is insane. I'm one step away from the half century mark! Last week I started planking and weightlifting, too, which I usually don't do until I am below my target weight in the mistaken and thoroughly unscientific belief that I immediately start regaining the weight when I lift, as though the meager barbells I hoist will inflate my arms and chest muscles to epic proportions after a few straining sets.

I also bought some "product" for bald men, which is supposed to moisturize and "add luster" to my pointy head. We'll see. But I am pretty excited that I got some product--I haven't had any beyond deodorant, toothpaste, shaving cream, and cologne for a number of years. I miss shampoo.

So it was a great month, self-improvement and productivity-wise. Beginning of the year, twelve points out of a possible twenty-five; after one month I'm already up to fourteen and half points with improvement in four out of five categories, well on my way to be a fully-actualized human being.

Stay tuned for February, that hideous month where I, like Karen, typically must do battle with the dreaded Blue Fog. Which you know all about if you've read my book Passing Strange, the third novel in the Generation Dead series.

Karen's book, but her cover is Generation Dead's 

Don't forget to click here and buy my books so I can continue to improve. Give Aural History a shot; you can read for free if you are an Amazon Prime member.

Secrets of Weight Loss--Revealed

Not Actual Size

The adventures of the Ketosis Kid have begun, as they have every January first or second for the past six years. I'm revealing my secret identity publicly for the first time, and why not? I was denied entrance into the Legion of Super-Heroes in favor of my old partner Matter-Eater Lad, but I can't say I blame them. Terrible Breath and Extreme Irritability aren't very spectacular super powers, especially as so many people share them. But I thought I'd record a few things for posterity in light of last years' epic battle (The Ketosis Kid vs. Oumuamu) which I won by (literally) the narrowest of margins.

Ouch.

My secret origin is quite simple; about six years ago, in a fit of self-loathing and disgust, I embarked on what I termed "The Austerity Diet" on January 2nd, which essentially was the result me taking an honest look at all of the foods and beverages I love and have a tendency to overindulge in and deciding I would not eat or drink any of those things until April first. I was already an avid (if ungainly) runner, good for ten to twenty miles a week, and a vegetarian,  so I figured these factors combined with jettisoning cheese, beer, bread, pasta, snacks, fun, joie de vivre, the will to live, etc. would have some weight loss benefits. More superstition than science, the Austerity Diet produced results (other than the aforementioned dragon breath and irritability) and not only had I reached my "target weight", I sailed past it by more than ten pounds. I lost exactly fifty pounds in four months (some of which were probably my brains and whatever my will to live weighs), or 22.8% of my total weight. The photo of me above is me at my lightest; I was so light that fourth graders could pick me up and toss me in the pond--which they often did. 

On April second I went back to eating and exercising normally, and over the course of the next eight months I would gain back a bunch of those pounds. So, convinced the Austerity Diet was the plan for me, I did it again the following year, but this time saying I would go back to my gluttonous ways as soon as I hit my target weight, which I would typically do by March 1st. As it is a well-known fact that February is an eternal enemy of the Ketosis kid, and I would not enjoy that hated month no matter what I did, I might as well pack it full of suffering. This was a good system and routine for many years.

Until 2018, where I kind did away with Austerity. Routines are dull! Self-denial is the hallmark of a boring life! I didn't fully eliminate all of the foods I was supposed to eat, and March 1 came and went and I hadn't hit my target. Probably because by then I wasn't really exercising like I had been for the past decade. Really, I'd been mailing it in since September 2017, logging only about ten miles a month on average when I had been clocking eighty-five to a hundred in those cruddy winter months. Whatever. Running is such a drag, though!Eh...life is short! Don't worry about it! Back to business as usual. 

But at the start of January, Oumuamua was growing--and moving--inside of me. 

Once Oumuamua was defeated on Sept. 18, I knew it would be a great deal of work to get back to where I was, in multiple aspects of my life. Time once again to become the Ketosis Kid! So after resting up for a few weeks after banishing Oumuamua, I started a regular running regimen again in mid-October, taking it easy to start. I also cut back on a few of the things that I knew would have to go once I went into full Austerity. I faced the new year fully primed to become the Ketosis Kid.

And guess what? In the three days of 2019, I've run over twenty miles, which is more than I ran in total in the months of Sept. '17, Dec. '17, Jan. '18, March '18, April '18, and May '18. It is more than almost any two of those months combined. Thankfully, I'm only about fifteen pounds off my target and I'm feeling great, so maybe I'll be able to quit before March 1st and enjoy part of the crappiest month of the year, February.

Many of want to lose weight and become better people (two desires which can be conjoined but are mutually exclusive more often than not). I go into this at length not to sell you on my particular weight loss plan, which is not fun after the first week, unscientific, and quite possibly unhealthy. It works for me, though...and therein lies my real point:

Find out what works for you, work on what works for you, test it constantly, give it up when it isn't working, but hold on for dear life once you realize it is. I hope it is obvious I'm not really talking about the weight loss thing here, I'm talking about the essential habits and routines that make you your most successful, fully realized version of you. Austerity wasn't the only beneficial habit I quit on last year, and it has taken me many months to rebuild. I can blame Oumuamua, but really, was Oumuamua the cause, or the effect? Either way, I will be better prepared if Oumuamua or one of its hideous alien minions reenters my orbit.

I'm apologize for roping you in, if that is what I did, with the false flag of weight loss promises. Burn more calories than you consume, I guess. Who knows.

With love, 

The Ketosis Kid