Dear Body, Please Get Better

It seems as if each day I whine in this space about my body. For the last week I’ve been dealing with a chronic genetic skin disorder which has plagued me for years. Ugh, I just want to wake up and not have something else which makes me feel like an inferior, undesirable person. Ha, I’m 47, why do I think that I will be looking better as I grow older?

Today’s Personal Project
Forget about my woes with a beer in hand while sitting around a campfire.

Today’s Daily Challenge
Release muscle tension by gently rolling your shoulders 5 times, both forward and backward.

The shoulder roll is a simple exercise with big benefits. It’s particularly helpful if you sit in front of a computer or at a desk for long periods of time, as the movement releases muscle tension in your neck, back, throat, and shoulders. This in turn helps prevent muscle strain and stiffness. Shoulder rolls also increase range of motion in your shoulders and upper back, and can improve your posture and balance.

Alone In A Crowd
I guess I should consider a museum event being a bust as natural.

First, I need to return to parking anywhere but the Woodruff Arts Center when attending plays or events at the High Museum of Art because I’m tired of shelling out $15 each time I park there.

Last night’s first outing was a “wine tasting” at the museum. Upon entering the event we were given three tickets for samples (1/3-1/2 glasses essentially) from six wine vendors — a brut (white), a pinot grigio (white), a verdejo (white), a chainti (red), a merlot (red), and a muscato (red) — hardly like the wine tastings of old…

The event itself was “fine” though it confirmed that I have no “game,” not that there were many women with whom I would wanted to have “game.” After consuming my three samples I wandered about the High looking at art work. For the record, I’ve also confirmed that I consider most “modern” art to be crap. Yeah, I said it.

Alone In An Empty Room
Once again I consider myself the only one with musical taste in this town…

After stuffing my gullet with Chinese buffet (hey, I said musical taste) I drove to Buckhead to go to the Peachtree Tavern. After paying another $5 to park I accidentally slipped into the bar via the backdoor, inadvertently avoiding the $8 ticket charge. Oooops. I waited for someone to come and ask me for money, but that never happened.

I was there to see/hear GASHCAT who are on their first-ever East Coast tour, and were the night’s opening band. I think that I was the only person there to hear the band, and I thought that the night when there were ten of us to see/hear My Jerusalem at The EARL was bad!

The Peachtree Tavern was FREEZING last night, it was like being outside while being indoors. I was cold, and the threesome of twenty-something women wearing skin-tight skimpy dresses must have been hating life as they sipped their Michelob Ultras.

GASHCAT was obviously bothered by the lack of audience as well as the room’s temperature. Regardless, they put on a fantastic set of music culminated by a near destruction of their equipment as the base player pushed the lead singer into the drum set.

After their set I walked up and briefly chatted with their keyboardist who was working their merch case. I inquired about their new EP, which was $3, until she found out that I had already purchased their previous CD “Reunion”, at which she gave me the EP for free. While I don’t need another t-shirt I wound up buying a $10 t-shirt just to help support the band. The band was looking for a place to spend the night, and seriously if my house was guest-friendly (it’s barely owner-friendly!) I would have let them crash at my house for the night.

I Still Need To Pack
I’m sitting at home. It’s only 8:00am so I am in no rush to get going, but I do need to get ready, pack the car, and hit a grocery store for chili components for tonight, before heading down to FDR State Park.

I’m looking forward to getting away, perhaps running with the hash tomorrow, drinking some beer, and sitting around a campfire for a couple of nights.

I hope that you have a good Friday and a great weekend.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – meh, though I’m looking forward to the camping trip
Current Music – listening to this week’s “iPad Today” podcast
Website Of The Day – This morning I stumbled upon the music blog The Blue Indian.
Mode Of Transportation To Work Camping – my (rental) car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – not checking

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~6.7 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0.0 miles
Pushups – 0
Situps – 0
Stairs – 0 flights

Days Of Bed-Making – 5

Vegetarian Meals – 11
Carnivorous Meals – 9
Pancakes Eaten – 0

Marta Rides To Work – 0
Bike Rides To Work – 0

November Goals
– none

2012 Goals [will be a little less fluid than last year]
– Get my weight under 200 pounds, or at least whittle myself back down to where wearing a 36″ pant size is comfortable
– Completely read ten books, audio books permissible
– Run Sharpened Stone as a real business
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop
– Ride in no fewer than five 50 mile or 50K bike rides
– Run in no fewer than one one 10K
– Submit at least one application under the name “Sharpened Stone” to Apple’s iOS store
– Restore the ITP Estate to a condition where it can be put up for sale at any time
– Buy a new iPhone (iPhone 5), a new iPad (iPad 3?), and MacBook Air [look, not all goals have to be altruistic]

The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient and profitable programmer in Objective-C
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem
– Eat smaller portions
– Start, and continue, to make my own bread using my bread machine as well as using the technique outlined in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
– Read and discard magazines during the month in which they arrive (even digitally)
– See more live concerts than I did in 2011