Ok. No more fucking around. I’m going to lay out my goals for this year. Starting with the more important ones and then meandering down to the ones that are just rattling around in my brain. Here is my post from yesterday, which is vaguely related.
1. Write the first draft of my novel/book. This has been in the forefront of my mind for the last few years. I have tried and tried to write it, but I’ve always stopped short because it just would not gel. Now, I don’t care about how terrible the first draft is as long as it gets written. I’m not sure which of the two ideas I want to focus on or if I can somehow combine the two.
I have been putting it off for a few years because I just can’t get the words to come out right. I don’t know if it’s permanent or temporary–but I fear it’s the former. I still have the ideas in my head, but they aren’t alive as they were before. In the past, they were moving as if in a film. Now, they are static.
I don’t know if it’s because of the medical crisis or not, but I have a hunch it is. I also realized that I had a much harder time visualizing things in my head. Before my medical crisis, if someone said, “Picture an apple in your mind.” I could do that easily, put it on any background, and make it move around. Now, I can still picture it, but it’s very pale and shadowy.
Again, I’m not mad about it because I’m alive. That’s all that really matters. But writing was a big part of my identity, and I’m lost without it. I could easily write 2,000 words a day as I did before my medical crisis–and I have. But it’s shit, and what’s more, I don’t know how to make it not-shit.
On the one hand, there’s no reason not to write the whole novel/memoir/book because why not? I have all the time in the world, so if it ends up not working, it’s nothing more than a few wasted months. It’s not like I don’t have those, anyway.
My goal is to write a very rough draft, 2,000 words at a time. If that’s too intimidating, I’ll start with a thousand words a day. The goal will be just to write. If even that is too much, then I’ll start with a character study of each main character. I never do that, but it’s a good way just to get me writing.
2. Finish teaching myself the Double Fan Form. I have ten postures/movements left to go, but I have hit a speed bump in the road. I got three shots on the same day (two vaxes and one regular bloodwork), which was not a good idea. I react terribly to shots (regular ones and vaxxes), and getting three on the same day was not smart at all. Especially when one of them was the second shingles shot. That one was b-r-u-t-a-l.
I have not been able to do my whole daily Taiji/Bagua routine since, which is a week-and-a-half.I have done stretching and a bit of Taiji and Bagua. I did both the first section of the Solo (Long) Form (Taiji) and the Swimming Dragon Form (Bagua, hands only) yesterday. I tried to do both today, but my brain suddenly forgot the beginning of the latter. I had to watch the video I took of my teacher doing it to jog my memory. That was weird, but once I got past the first six or seven movements, it all fell back into place.
The Double Fan Form has been the hardest weapon form I’ve learned–by a country mile. It’s not even close. I’m really good at learning weapon forms in general, but this one is kicking my ass. Repeatedly. Around a quarter of the way through until halfway through, I honestly didn’t think I was going to get it. I was stuck on each movement for days on end.
By comparison, I have learned every other form in less than three months each. With this form, it’s been five months and I still have a quarter left to teach myself. I’m fatigued, and I wish I were done with it, but I’m trying to be patient with myself. It’s a beautiful form, and I’ve learned a lot from teaching it to myself, but, man, it’s so much harder than I thought it would be.
3. Eat more healthily. I’ve been eating like shit since my medical crisis. Not that I’ve ever eaten well, but it’s gotetn markedly worse. I have ordered too much DoorDash, and I want to cut back on it. I also want to try to make simple dishes for myself. Whether it’s a basic (gluten-free) pasta dish or some kind of sandwich, it’s better than constantly ordering out. Oh, and my brother clued me into GlutenEase, which is like Lactaid for gluten. I was skeptical, but his GF tried them out, and they worked well for her.
I bought a bottle and tried it on food that I was not sure of, and it worked well. When I ate the food the second day without the pill, I had some diarrhea. Not as bad as I would get with heavily-glutened food, but still. I popped a GlutenEase the third day, and no stomach troubles at all.
If this is the case, then my life has opened up again. I used to use Lactaid until it no longer worked. If the GlutenEase does what it says on the bottle, I don’t think I would go back to eating gluten all the time, but once in a while for a treat? Yes, please. I miss dumplings, specifically, and I would love to be able to eat them, say, once a month.
4. Get up and move consistently. I am in my computer chair for most of the day. I think it would be ideal for me to get up once an hour and move around for five to ten minutes. The problem is that, well, I don’t remember to do it. But, also, that I don’t want to do it. I don’t think that should matter, though, because I feel better when I do it.
That’s all for today. Will write more tomorrow.