walking – Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com

…I’m awake, fuck it. Not quite the 3:00 in the morning blues, but it’ll have to be close enough.

I am pretty sure that I have been sweating for 20 straight hours, guys. Yesterday was a bit of a scorcher– I say “a bit” because 1) by historical standards it actually wasn’t really all that bad and 2) it’s going to be worse today, but the first thing I did when I got to work yesterday morning was help to unload an eighteen-wheeler full of furniture. At the time I commented that it wasn’t actually that bad of a truck, and it wasn’t– mostly big, square boxes that aren’t difficult to balance on a dolly and very few sofas, which are impossible to balance right and are the bane of my existence. What I wasn’t aware of was that for the next eleven hours of my work shift, constituting nearly 18000 steps and nearly eleven miles of walking, I was not ever going to actually stop sweating at any point. Which may have accounted at least partially for my poor performance as a salesman yesterday, come to think of it. I went through eight refills of the liter-sized water bottle I keep with me and never stopped feeling dehydrated.

I have blisters on my feet. I have to do it all over again today.

Then I got home from work, said good night to my son, ate some dinner, watched PREACHER, and went to bed. See anything missing? For some reason, I declared myself too tired to take a shower, which was some seriously poor decision making right there. Why am I typing on my blog and not in the shower right now, since I’m awake? Well, my wife leaves for work way before I do and I’m letting her do her morning ablutions before I rinse the filth off my disgusting meat-shell. I can smell myself, guys, and when I woke up this morning from a mild nightmare and had to get out of bed because I could hear a sound I couldn’t identify in the house, I came back to what was basically a pool of sweat in my fucking bed that I couldn’t make myself lie back down in.

The pillow is still awesome, though.

I will get used to this schedule, where I have three really long days to balance out two of what are basically half-days and two days off. I’m not there yet, but I will be; I’m not worried about it. But I’m wearing tennis shoes to work today, and when I get off from my half day tomorrow I am driving directly to the New Balance store in Granger, handing my credit card to the first salesperson who talks to me, and telling her that money is no object (how much can shoes possibly cost?) and to put something black on my feet that will make them feel like they are surrounded by love and honey and magic all day long. Because my current dress shoes do not fit that qualification. At all.

You think my bed’s dry yet? Technically I don’t have to be up for another hour.

EDIT: just in case, for some reason, anyone doubts me: last night’s sleep and yesterday’s steps. Today is going to be rough.

microwave-etiquette-meme-generator-vaguebooking-that-s-a-paddlin-94d7ad.jpg Sorry about the vaguebooking yesterday; one of our cats has been sick for a while, got abruptly really sick yesterday and we spent the whole evening shuttling him around from home to the regular vet to the emergency vet and it really really wasn’t a good evening. He looks like he’s going to pull through, though; he’s coming home (from the regular vet, who we had to deliver him back to) tonight to spend the night at home where, the thought is, he’ll be more comfortable. Then he goes back to regular vet again tomorrow for the day. Assuming there are no disasters tonight. Cross your fingers; I’ve had enough of medical issues in general lately.

Did my first observation for the probation assistance team today; I have three days, more or less, to get my notes compiled together and sent out to everyone. I have less to say than I thought I would, honestly; I spent most of the observation musing about what might come from putting the teacher on probation in my classroom. Because, honestly, there were things working in there that simply don’t work for me, and the lesson plan itself may as well have been ripped directly from corporation paperwork– which is interesting. Is that a weakness, because there’s none of the teacher in the lesson? Is a strength, because they presumably recommend that lesson plan for a reason and this teacher is Doing it Right? Which means, then, that I’m Doing it Wrong? I dunno. I didn’t see much that made me think the teacher should be let go, which is a good thing. I just hope everybody else on the team feels the same way. Writing up the notes will be interesting.

Day Three of wearing a Fitbit Force: I walk about seven thousand steps a day, maybe, when I’m not spending the entire evening in my car shuttling a cat around to doctors. I haven’t tried pairing it with MyFitnessPal or doing any actual exercise yet; I want to take a week or so and get a baseline for how much I move around during a day and then we’ll set some goals and make some adjustments. One development: I’m way more into the idea of a smart watch than I’ve been in the past; the idea of notifications being delivered via a vibration to my wrist rather than an an audible tone is wonderful, and I don’t ever want to be awakened by an alarm again. Seriously, I could completely give up on the idea of fitness– fuck it, I’ll just be fat forever– and I’m still gonna wear this thing to bed. Silent vibrating wrist alarms are fantastic.

Posts that are percolating; reviews of the new Eminem and Latyrx CDs, as soon as I find the time to listen to the damn things, and that reminds me I never really wrote about the new Pearl Jam album, and probably a post on theology based on this piece at the Atlantic, which quotes people who I know from grad school. Who somehow teach at Oxford now.

Yeah. I know Oxford professors. I think that probably confers nerd baller status, but maybe not.

I’m not writing that last piece unless I can do it in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m gleefully tossing grenades and lit torches around; I’d like to participate in a conversation and not just be an asshole. We’ll see how well it works. In the meantime, click on the link; it’s worth the read.