Here's what I like.
I like that we started today with a plan, hit some snags early, pivoted internally before a major external disruption caused a rapid assess response react review cycle that ended in an afternoon pivot which we brought in for a landing once we recognized we were out of gas. We didn't keep spinning.
That's a win no matter the outcome and those are the best kind because they endure.
I like also that we are writing this part, ourselves, with tools we built with our hands. Even if it's fucked up it's our handwriting I'll take that.
Take the W and possibly a nap.
~ JR
This hotel is the same.
I remember the silence. I remember the door. I remember I couldn't stand or get my things off of the luggage rack...I remember that taking forever and wondering how when all I had fit into two suitcases and my brother was about to drive off with my BMW and several of my medications that I wouldn't see again until the impound lot when I was allowed to retrieve them.
I remember trying to shower. I remember throwing up for the last time and knowing it was the last time...not sure how I knew but I was like “that was the last one of those.” Dialysis..trying to clean my dressing after getting out of the hospital with the infection I got from months of living in filth and the best healthcare poverty can buy. That was the first thirty days.
I haven't thought about the first thirty days in a while.
The silence is the same. Then it was such a blessing. Comforting. I guess I'm back there now. Or maybe I never left she was just visiting for a while.
The door is closed and locked and I've got the only key.
Doo doo do doo, doo do doo do...
I'm not going to do one of these every day. I am going to give it a sprint folder and put it next to the summaries in case I go on a wild tear one sprint and do a bunch of them. So this will allow for less than daily but more than once per sprint. Which works.
Speaking of sprints this one is wrapping in dramatic fashion with a drive eight hours to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to teach a five hour executive session on Entrepreneurship. As one does.
Ok maybe doing these all at once doesn't work or rather I should do them all at once instead of start stopping like I did this one. I started this breathing through the anxiety of an eight hour drive through rural Ohio and Pennsylvania as a single Black man with no friends family or anyone to call...ok that was a spiral my point is if shit pops off that's it. No one will know but me and it'll be up to me. I know this because that's how it goes. Every time. Maybe not every time but looking back to August 2019 at least it's been just me and the results of my stupid bullshit.
Another time for all that here's the point. I set up all this — the documentation system, the syncing, all of it — specifically because of how many “if this is it who will give a shit” moments I have survived and I am not so arrogant as to believe I will survive all of them. I just hope at some point someone goes looking for this. That's what I want ultimately. For there to be a body of work out there that someone some day says “I wonder what this guy was thinking...let's see what I can find out...“
I want to be the sort of person who doesn't have to tell you who they are because they know that you do yet they don't care one way or the other. Not even admired: Regarded.
~ JR
Isn't it funny how quickly something like stopping at Biggby for coffee on the way to the office in the morning becomes a habit. I did that (legit just stopped to backtrack my life is like that) two to three times a week for maybe three months and I just looked back on it fondly as “that time in my life.” There's that three month time period again...maybe that's it. Maybe it's the Gladwell thing but for habit formation: If you do something for ninety days it goes from something you do to something you do habitually to the point where not doing it anymore is jarring. Not stopping at Biggby is the part I remember about getting fired from the MDOT contract. When does the absence of a thing become disruptive enough to notice its presence? If I don't workout, I notice. When I started waking up alone, I noticed. These are habits but without an (I mix up intrinsic and extrinsic I did this on the CPT exam I think) motivator.
This is my research so I should probably lock this down sometime in the next checks two weeks.
OK now I know how to do italics that's cool.
~ JR
Either I'm going to write in this thing at the top of or the end of the day I haven't decided where in the workflow it fits.
Either way it's going to need to because I refuse for
Who? Oh wow I haven't thought of him in forever!
to be the story of me.
With the dates it lends itself more towards daily posting but that seems forced on some “Dear Diary” ish.
Or maybe that's what we're doing here.
I'll just keep telling myself I'm writing this because someday someone is going to care, whether it's a forensic psychologist or a Washington Post columnist.
Ha. ¿Porque no los dos? I should pick up Unicode for fun between this and effing LinkedIn.
OK that's a good idea: Stream of consciousness randomly, but maybe a end of day “Doogie Howser M.D.” summary done in Obsidian then uploaded here. Then the picture situation gets resolved because I can work out the hooks off-line.
This works. Hit the theme music. Yooooo I should do a CRT monitor theme don't think I won't do it.
OK this is the perfect use case for this because I absolutely need to post this for posterity. Speaking of — I need to think about server archival for all our “local-first, privacy forward” rah rah dogfood yum. We could do AMANDA tape backups for old times sake remember when we fully got fired over that? Good times.
OK anyway shout-out to me for having abused no children whatsoever. Say what you will about your career path I bet it hasn't involved three polygraphs and now a child abuse history.
If nothing else this is solid Markdown practice. The import function seems compelling with all this Evolution documentation...
See that's going to be a pain in the ass but I'll figure it out.
Am I seriously going to have to go through all that for image posts? I don't hardly think so.
Haaaa I changed my mind that's rad.
Not sure what the game plan will be for this...need to break out of the “WordPress” mentality and I get that but I really want to add pretty pictures. Maybe a hook for Supabase uploads that should be manageable in Obsidian. Something to roadmap.
In the meantime it's just lightweight blogging and something else for no one to read. The font at least is soothing. Major Doogie Howser M.D. vibes and I feel like we said that in a previous Evolution. Check the tapes.
Ha.
In the meantime.
~ JR
So.
I bricked my phone recently to install Graphene (because I'm nuts short version) which meant detangling myself from the Google ecosystem after two plus decades of Pixel/Messages/GMail use. Long story short (too late) this screenshot is the first text I sent...how do I describe.
OK let me back up.
In February 2022 I escaped a hell of my own creation and ended up in an extended stay hotel with two suitcases of clothing and what I had on my back. I didn't even have pants or a shirt as I had been wearing the same filthy pair of sweatpants for months. I stayed in that hotel, alone, without an address until I was able to get myself employed in May and into a rental house in August. That house was the first time I could put an address next to my name since October of the previous year. I don't remember everything from that first five months but I do remember checking the box for “homeless” more than once.
So.
I suppose this is where I'll keep shit like this for the duration. Which works because I've gotten super good at Markdown.
Do I sign off? Sure.
~ JR