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Got some news this morning.

Don't you dare tell me God doesn't give us trials we can't bear. If we could shoulder everything life throws us all on our own, why in the hell would we need him in the first place?

When Shaky Becomes Twitchy

Okay, that title is a little misleading. And I have no idea what it means, so have fun with that.

I've changed my relationship with food. I've changed our relationship with food. I used to get up every morning just in time to take care of my hygiene, put a few bites of something starchy in my body and clothes on my back, and head out to do whatever it is I had to do that day. Now, I'm waking up about half an hour before the Sun, making myself a pot o'beans, putting on some reggae music, and cooking breakfast.

And I mean cooking.

When the Wife got back from her summer vacation to California, we spent a pretty penny overhauling our entire culinary situation. We got all kinds of fresh greens, lean meats, herbs and spices I didn't know existed, and a plethora of raw ingredients I'd never cooked with. So we're not talkin' eggs and bacon here. Pan searing ground meats while dicing up some bok choy stems and onions really puts me in the right mood.

For a moment, I watch the sun rise through the window and pretend that all these fresh greens were grown in my own personal garden. I'm the head chef in my own kitchen, so it's okay that I'm dancing in my underwear. While my legs and feet pay tribute to the Marley legacy, my hands cook up a sizzling breakfast that's as meaty as it is juicy. I plate. I garnish with fresh parsley and squeeze lime over the dish to add the I-taste-something-different-but-I-can't-put-my-finger-on-what-it-is factor. I deliver it to my honored patron, my sleeping beauty.

I'm telling ya, it's the best way to start the day.

So I've been cooking breakfasts every morning. I won't wake up early to work out, I won't wake up early to work from home, and I won't wake up early for anything else. Except for cooking breakfast, I've discovered. We go on walks every night and we're planning on buying bikes. We just feel more healthy as human beings. We spend our time more wisely without trying. We spend money more frugally without realizing it. It's crazy how being responsible with your food ripples into every part of who you are. It's not about the food you eat - it's about your attitude toward food.

So we'll see where this goes, but it's the first time in a long time I've embarked on a journey with no definite finish line in my sights. And it is hella exciting.

This is all for now,
-R.

The Unnamed Masked Man

I'm making a super hero costume. Sometimes I feel like the world is watching me, waiting for me to do all the things they can't or won't do. But then I realize that my wife is really the only person doing that.

But as far as I'm concerned, those are the same thing.

Every now and then, though, I'll get an idea in my head, and I'll take it seriously. I'll send messages to everyone who I think would want to know, just to say "this is what I'm doing." It's always surprising to me how much of a positive response I get. I routinely get people telling me "we're in your corner" and "we can't wait to see this happen."

Sometimes it's an entrepreneurial venture, other times it's a creative project or some kind of mission I send myself on. Well, I've still got my plate of things, but I'm getting used to juggling it all - I've found my groove. My "thing of the moment," if you will, is a super hero.

He doesn't have a name yet, or a logo, but I am his alter ego. I'm only 4 pieces away from completing my costume. Everything that's free, I've done. I just need to buy a discontinued set of eyewear from eBay, a Kevlar vest made for motorcyclists, a pair of riot gloves, and some light tape just for looks.

It started as a realization that there are a lot of stupid people on campus at UTA, who think it's okay to walk up behind a woman and slap her ass, steal her backpack, or even threaten her life if she doesn't perform certain acts.

I am not okay with this.

The victims always report them to the cops, usually the next day, and the campus police put out warnings and waned posters. And y'know what else? The assailants always get away. I've put together a map in Google Maps that pinpoints the locations of each reported crime. I'm going to start training in kickboxing, Muay Thai and Vale Tudo. I'm going to do everything I can to see that these people can't keep doing what they're doing. I'm going to have to hurt some people, and I'm probably going to get hurt in the process. But the wife backs up this project, and so does everyone I've told so far.

Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe I'll patrol all semester and never see anything happen. If nothing else, I'll have a cool superhero costume for halloween and possibly Comic Con. I just need a name for this hero. And a logo.

A Thought.

I think that if evolution was in the bible, academia would write Darwin off as a religious fanatic and avidly advocate for the teaching of creationism in schools. I might make a web comic about that.

Why didn't I think of that?

I want to build one of these.

New Motivation, New Website, New Blog Post.

If I had been born a dwarf, I would make a living designing custom Wordpress widgets and call myself the Widget Midget.

Just had to get that off my chest.

Well I read Joel Watson's Experiment a few days ago, and it really lit a fire under me to get going on building the life I want. It's not going to happen on its own through some stroke of luck.

So I've been diligently working in my home time to get things up and going, and it's starting to show. I'm moving my own needles, and literally everyone I'm doing life with are also getting motivated and moving their own needles too. It's a pretty incredible thing to be a part of.

I've set up a local server on my iMac and built the framework of a website that will serve as a hub for all of my things I'm involved in, and all still need to do is actually design the look & layout, CSS the crap out of it and stock it up with content. And it needs a name. And I gotta buy the domain. And I need a logo...

I think ... I should probably be designing instead of blogging right now.

Confessions

This might be a bad idea. These are all true, whether or not I'm proud of them or wish for them to continue being true.

• I pee in the shower.
• I have road rage, but only against BMW drivers.
• I swallow watermelon seeds because I'm too lazy to find something to spit them into.
• I love being naked.
• I hate getting wet.
• I still can't tell if I like showers.
• The only things I hate about other people are the things I hate about myself.
• I'm not as good at anything as you think I am.
• I would almost always rather be alone than around people.
• I like a couple Nickelback songs.
• I don't hold my dick when I pee.
• I often think I'm more influential than I actually am.
• When I'm alone, I try to lick my own elbow.
• I assume everyone likes me.
• I fear that no one does.
• I cross boundaries. On purpose.
• Sometimes, I refuse to acknowledge that time moves at the same rate for everyone.
• I'm still growing out of putting things off that I don't want to do.
• This list is longer than I thought it would be.
• I love peeing.

My Plate at the Moment.

Wow. Sometimes, when you grab life by the horns, it kicks you in the nut sack and says "don't you touch my freaking horns."

There is so much on my mental plate right now. I recently wrote about how you can tell what's important to you by what you actually physically do with the 24 hours you're given each day. There are so many things that I either want to do, or am about to do, but I haven't done any of them yet. It's like that point on a roller coaster right at the top of that first giant hill, when you begin to feel gravity's pull, but you haven't actually started to plummet downhill yet.

• I'm currently co-writing the pilot to a mini-series that I think will make an impression on many people. I plan to actually put pen to paper for the first time tonight.
   
• I've been commissioned to create an infographic as a freelance job. I plan to begin moving the needle on that tonight as well.
   
• I've also been commissioned to design a logo for a newly opened online store for baby things.
   
• Yet another entrepreneur friend has asked me to be his go-to guy for all creative projects taken on by his up-and-coming marketing agency. We're still talking numbers.
   
• I've been speaking with a friend about adding illustrations to the posts on his hilariously clever tumblr page.
   
• I have received a wealth of confirmation that my daily drawings could turn into something big. They've made it to the front page of Reddit on more than one occasion. I'm currently working on figuring out how to make them make me money.
   
• I'm helping more than a few of my friends and family figure out how to see their own entrepreneurial dreams come to fruition.
   
• I'm still planning on painting a series of paintings for my nephew. Just because.

I think that's it. There's probably more. But I think that's it.

In order to handle doing all of these things, though, I've had to narrow my focus. I've made some changes in how I spend my time and where I pour my interest, so make room time-wise and brain-wise for the things I want to include in my life.

I'm taking a break from social media right now, and I won't be doing any more daily drawings until I can cater them towards whatever plan I come up with to monetize them. As I continue to make progress in each of these ventures, I'll likely post them here.

I find that I normally only blog when I learn something, and I expect to learn a lot once all of these things jump from my head to my hands and start happening.

This is all for now,

-R.

TIL...

It's 7:12 and I've been working from home for about an hour.

I woke up at 6 this morning to work, because I told a co-worker yesterday that I had hit a landmark on a project, that I actually hadn't hit. But it needs to be presentable by 10 today for a meeting, so I got up early to finish it up.

I've been able to force myself to wake up at the butt crack of dawn in the past, if what I was waking up for was extremely important - like a mission trip out of the country, or my high school girlfriend's mom's legendary Saturday morning garage sale of 2005.

...or, y'know, something like finishing up a project that I said was already finished.

What I'm getting at is that I thought I had trouble waking up early in the mornings, but I guess the root of the problem is that I don't put enough importance on the things I would wake up for.

I've been saying I need to cram a meditation, workout, or creative endeavor into my pre-work day, which means waking up butt early to do it. But I guess those three things just aren't as important to me as doing overdue design work.




But seeing how easy it is for me to wake up early for a specific task gives me hope that if I can figure out a way to convince myself that meditation is more important, I might actually be able to wake up early every morning to do it.