My Nazi Scales are taking the piss today.
Post-bathroom weigh-in this morning - 17st 6.25 - same as last week. I'll be honest, I was happy enough to take that on a week which has included d's sdalty peanut fudge, cos dayum!
Padded about a bit in a semi-regular morning daze, listening, of all things, to an audiobook reading of The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius (don't let that fool you, I'm not high-brow, I've moved on to a Doctor Who novelization now). Went back. Scratched myself where I itched. Stepped back on the Nazi Scales.
17st 4.0. Tried that a few times, got consistent results.
'Fuck off,' I muttered. 'There's no way I lost precisely dick-all in seven days, and then 2.25 pounds in half an hour's dicking about. You're just fucking with me now.'
I pulled the scales to a slightly different position on the tiled floor. Stepped on again.
'Fine, see if you like this then,' said the Nazi Scales. 'Can do you a 17st 5.25. That suitably reasonable for you, is it?'
'Thank you,' I muttered - re-doing the weigh-in seveal more times, to make sure I got consistent results.
So. Somewhere between where I was last week and two and a quarter pounds lighter is probably where I aactually am.
For no terribly good reason, I'm going to take the middle reading, and claim 17 stone 5.25 as today's 'actual' reading. Because hell, it has to be something, and it might as well be that - each of the three readings was taken at least three times, for the 'No, really, stop fucking with me' value, so it's as valid as anything else, doesn't push me into entirely unbelievable places, and still allows me to go completely into Smug Mode today at having fudge and carrying on.
So...yeah. Nazi Scales say 17st 5.25 today. IF I were to, y'know, get my shit together and have some properly good weeks of not eating fudge and walking my ass off, I could theoretically push on down into the 16s three weeks from now - which would be something to shove in the face of my diabetic nurse next time I see her. The letter's already arrived, but I'm pretending it hasn't, because my recent blood results have been less than stellar, tending to go from 9ish to 11ish and back again. #MustDoBetter, clearly, at least on that score.
Oh, and talking of walking - went and did it last night. First time in about two weeks, I think. Now, here's the thing. Our flat is in the centre of a very small seaside town. About five, maybe six streets, that's the heart of the town. My usual walking route is ennnntirely flat, along the main street, alont a side street, through a couple of tunnels (see previous entries where I fell and knackered my ankle), and then along a lovely coastal path with the sea on my right, usually from Saundersfoot, via a fancy restaurant called Coast, to the rather gloriously-named Wiseman's Bridge. This is my 'basic' walk - usually when I get cocky about it and want to do more, I divert just before Wiseman's and head into a forest, past an old iron works and on into the wide green yonder.
Last night, I decided to do something different.
I went up the fairly steep-ish hill that leads the way out of the town centre to the other side of us. Saw an interesting uphill street attached to it. Walked up there. And up there. And up and up and up there. Coughed, spluttered, saw spangles, thought briefly 'This is it, this is how I die,' pressed on ever upward.
Eventually, oh, SO eventually, found a downhill road. Came down and down and down and realised I'd taken about an hour to go the 'eight minutes on the flat' journey to Coast.
That's a rubbish way to get to Coast, unless you happen to want to burn calories, flay leg-muscles and stop being able to breathe. So - result. I saw another uphill road. And followed it, up, and up, and up...annnnnnnd down again to Wiseman's. Basically, I leapfrogged my way to Wiseman's Bridge, with more pain, more gasping and more destruction of my will to live. But it actually felt rather good to do it, simply because I haven't done any proper walking for a while.
Came back the flat way though, obviously. I mean, I'm clearly a moron, but even I have limits.
Got in just as the 65mph gusts of the joyfest that is Storm Gareth were beginning to hit us.
So...haven't walked at all today. Haven't, in fact, been outside the door today, apart from a quick pop to the corner shop. Probably won't, now, until Saturday cos aaaaaargh - deadlines.
But before deadlines - The Great British Sewing Bee.
Shurrup, don't judge me, it's compelling...What the hell kind of stitch is that?
Showing posts with label motivation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motivation. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 March 2019
Wednesday, 2 January 2019
The Wagon Training
Hey there, Disappearinos.
Well, I went from Christmas to almost New Year still glued to the office, so the food-richest time of the year was compounded by ass-boil-growing levels of physical inactivity.
Which makes sense of yesterday's weigh-in. 17st 11.5. Up three-quarters of a pound. Not by any means where I wanted to be, but given both the factors at play, I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears, go 'Lalalala' and claim (in the entire absence of evidence) reasonable positivity. Up less than a pound between Christmas and New Year - yeah, I'll take that.
Yesterday, the morning after a hefty Indian banquet including rice, naan, bhajis and a cocount milk-based sauce, my blood sugar was a smidgen over the double-figure goal, coming in at 10.9.
This morning, 2nd January, nudged it back under the line - 9.3. And, more significantly, kicked off the walking habit of 2019. Not an enormously long walk - my Samsung Health app tells me it was 4.03 km, so basically just 'over there and back again.' But still - further than I've gone any time recently, and hopefully the start of getting the numbers going in the right direction again.
January is of course the traditional time for starting new things, new plans, and particularly new weight-loss or exercise or 'cleansing' routines. In my case though, I tend not to put too much pressure on January - it's like starting a diary: if you go at it hammer and tongs in January, chances are you'll burn out by February.
In my case, it's just a coincidence that I happen to suddenly be free to get back to walking now it's January. The goal remains the same in January as they were in December - 2 pounds per week. So by the 8th, I hope to be weighing in at 17st 9.5. By the 15th, 17st 7.5 (or, as a bonus, maybe 17st 7). By 15th Febuary, my hope is to be in the 16s, and so on. I haven't gone enormously outside my rules over Christmas - though there was one rather glorious Fish And Chipfest - but it was certainly Christmas and New Year, and now it isn't that any more, so it's back to the focus.
I think that's an odd thing this time round. Long ago, when I was doing this the first documented time, I had my rigid 'perspex boxes' - I couldn't go even slightly wrong, at all, ever, because if I did, the whole thing would come tumbling down. And indeed, it was a fish and chipfest that eventually broke me, and things DID come tumbling down in a mass of self-fulfilling prophecy. When you get to 48, you realise the sun goes down every night, and comes up every morning* and it's up to you what you make of it. If you wanna carry on as you've been doing, you don't necessarily have to treat the new day as another day of addictive behaviour. Yeah, you fell off the wagon - at least with food, as opposed to almost everything else that triggers pleasure centres, you're unlikely to have a chemical addiction-trigger to have to re-fight (Although, sugar...). If you want to, you can just get right back up on the damn wagon, and start another day 1. So this is me - having enjoyed my Christmas, and my New Year, saddlin' up my wagon again and riding it through 2019. Two pounds a week should see my almost 7.5 stone (104 pounds) lighter by the first week of January 2020 - and that of course isn't counting the Brexit Famine. Around the 10 stone mark, or 140 pounds.
There's Probably-Not-Dying-So-Soon in that there weight-loss.
Giddy-up!
Well, I went from Christmas to almost New Year still glued to the office, so the food-richest time of the year was compounded by ass-boil-growing levels of physical inactivity.
Which makes sense of yesterday's weigh-in. 17st 11.5. Up three-quarters of a pound. Not by any means where I wanted to be, but given both the factors at play, I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears, go 'Lalalala' and claim (in the entire absence of evidence) reasonable positivity. Up less than a pound between Christmas and New Year - yeah, I'll take that.
Yesterday, the morning after a hefty Indian banquet including rice, naan, bhajis and a cocount milk-based sauce, my blood sugar was a smidgen over the double-figure goal, coming in at 10.9.
This morning, 2nd January, nudged it back under the line - 9.3. And, more significantly, kicked off the walking habit of 2019. Not an enormously long walk - my Samsung Health app tells me it was 4.03 km, so basically just 'over there and back again.' But still - further than I've gone any time recently, and hopefully the start of getting the numbers going in the right direction again.
January is of course the traditional time for starting new things, new plans, and particularly new weight-loss or exercise or 'cleansing' routines. In my case though, I tend not to put too much pressure on January - it's like starting a diary: if you go at it hammer and tongs in January, chances are you'll burn out by February.
In my case, it's just a coincidence that I happen to suddenly be free to get back to walking now it's January. The goal remains the same in January as they were in December - 2 pounds per week. So by the 8th, I hope to be weighing in at 17st 9.5. By the 15th, 17st 7.5 (or, as a bonus, maybe 17st 7). By 15th Febuary, my hope is to be in the 16s, and so on. I haven't gone enormously outside my rules over Christmas - though there was one rather glorious Fish And Chipfest - but it was certainly Christmas and New Year, and now it isn't that any more, so it's back to the focus.
I think that's an odd thing this time round. Long ago, when I was doing this the first documented time, I had my rigid 'perspex boxes' - I couldn't go even slightly wrong, at all, ever, because if I did, the whole thing would come tumbling down. And indeed, it was a fish and chipfest that eventually broke me, and things DID come tumbling down in a mass of self-fulfilling prophecy. When you get to 48, you realise the sun goes down every night, and comes up every morning* and it's up to you what you make of it. If you wanna carry on as you've been doing, you don't necessarily have to treat the new day as another day of addictive behaviour. Yeah, you fell off the wagon - at least with food, as opposed to almost everything else that triggers pleasure centres, you're unlikely to have a chemical addiction-trigger to have to re-fight (Although, sugar...). If you want to, you can just get right back up on the damn wagon, and start another day 1. So this is me - having enjoyed my Christmas, and my New Year, saddlin' up my wagon again and riding it through 2019. Two pounds a week should see my almost 7.5 stone (104 pounds) lighter by the first week of January 2020 - and that of course isn't counting the Brexit Famine. Around the 10 stone mark, or 140 pounds.
There's Probably-Not-Dying-So-Soon in that there weight-loss.
Giddy-up!
Tuesday, 20 February 2018
The Crawl Of The Ever-So-Slightly Lighter Brigade
Half a pound, half a pound,
Half a pound downward,
Into the Valley of Taking the Frigging Piss trudged the encumbered...
Yes - today's weigh-in figures show me at 19st 3.25 - that's a whole half-pound lighter than last week.
To be fair, this week I've missed a good few days of walking, due to deadline commitments, and last night we did have a pretty rich pasta dinner, to there's that, but all the same, it feels like a proper crawl at the minute.
But that being said, it's not as though my Disappearing is currently making too painful an impact on my life - the walking's pleasant, and I have yet to dedicate enough time or layers of foot-skin to it for it to be uber-effective; the bike is neeearly uncovered but there are two enormo, fuck-off paintings in the way, for which it's fair to say I don't have actual wall-space for, or any practical clue what to do with. I'm still, as foreshadowed, eating pasta - as well as other unwise things like occasional cashew nuts. I'm still drinking chilled Starbucks drinks from Tesco. And while I'm on my meds, I've been rationing them somewhat, due to a situation of being between doctors at the moment, which is hopefully solved now. So it's probably dead right that I should only be losing quarter-pounds. The time will come when I knuckle the hell down and things start moving properly - probably when I fiugure out what to do with those paintings, and add a daily chunk of biking into my regiment. but that's not today.
And as a pal pointed out to me this morning with a properly Girl Scout philosophy, 'still moving in the right direction.' I did point out that if you took pictures of the rate at which I'm 'moving in the right direction,' as of yet, they'd fail to show any movement whatsoever, but hey ho.
Right - on we go. Some bugger pass me my walking boots...
Half a pound downward,
Into the Valley of Taking the Frigging Piss trudged the encumbered...
Yes - today's weigh-in figures show me at 19st 3.25 - that's a whole half-pound lighter than last week.
To be fair, this week I've missed a good few days of walking, due to deadline commitments, and last night we did have a pretty rich pasta dinner, to there's that, but all the same, it feels like a proper crawl at the minute.
But that being said, it's not as though my Disappearing is currently making too painful an impact on my life - the walking's pleasant, and I have yet to dedicate enough time or layers of foot-skin to it for it to be uber-effective; the bike is neeearly uncovered but there are two enormo, fuck-off paintings in the way, for which it's fair to say I don't have actual wall-space for, or any practical clue what to do with. I'm still, as foreshadowed, eating pasta - as well as other unwise things like occasional cashew nuts. I'm still drinking chilled Starbucks drinks from Tesco. And while I'm on my meds, I've been rationing them somewhat, due to a situation of being between doctors at the moment, which is hopefully solved now. So it's probably dead right that I should only be losing quarter-pounds. The time will come when I knuckle the hell down and things start moving properly - probably when I fiugure out what to do with those paintings, and add a daily chunk of biking into my regiment. but that's not today.
And as a pal pointed out to me this morning with a properly Girl Scout philosophy, 'still moving in the right direction.' I did point out that if you took pictures of the rate at which I'm 'moving in the right direction,' as of yet, they'd fail to show any movement whatsoever, but hey ho.
Right - on we go. Some bugger pass me my walking boots...
Tuesday, 13 February 2018
The Nonsensical Result
This begins to make no sense at all.
Last week, I was pretty good, and lost all of 0.75 of a pound.
This week, I've still been technically sticking to a Disappearing regime, but have misssed a couple of days' walking due to bad weather and deadline panic, plus had a Sunday dinner out at a restautant, and apparently as of this morning, weigh 19st 3.75 - down a full regulation two pounds.
I have no idea how that works - possibly a lack of obsessive weighing and fanatical stressing, while sticking to principles and suchlike. Either way, while it makes little sense to me when I compare the two weeks side by side, I'll happily take the nonsensical result and run with it - two more weeks of this and I see an 18. So, in case there was ever any doubt doubt about this, I'm going pro-nonsense in terms of my Disappearing.
I mean, there's nonsense and nonsense - I'm not about to go pro-Brexit or anything, but a touch of nonsense in terms of giving less of a determined crap about the mini-weigh-ins and the 'Ohhhh I touched a potato on the Sabbath, I must flog myself silly' mentality, and just crack on with the business of Disappearing, pound by irritating, slow, exhausting pound.
It's worth mentioning that last night I had a somewhat lighter supper than I'd intended, which probably played a part in the nonsense of today's result, but hey - whatever works, right?
Onward, to Nonsenseville and seeing the 18 in the stones column. Technically I don't feel like I'm properly Disappearing till we reach a 17, but if I can get the first half-stone (seven pounds) done, it'll feel like progress, and to get beneath 19 again will feel like even more. So yay - nonsense for evvvveryone.
OK, low-cal, artificially sweetened nonsense for evvveryone!
Last week, I was pretty good, and lost all of 0.75 of a pound.
This week, I've still been technically sticking to a Disappearing regime, but have misssed a couple of days' walking due to bad weather and deadline panic, plus had a Sunday dinner out at a restautant, and apparently as of this morning, weigh 19st 3.75 - down a full regulation two pounds.
I have no idea how that works - possibly a lack of obsessive weighing and fanatical stressing, while sticking to principles and suchlike. Either way, while it makes little sense to me when I compare the two weeks side by side, I'll happily take the nonsensical result and run with it - two more weeks of this and I see an 18. So, in case there was ever any doubt doubt about this, I'm going pro-nonsense in terms of my Disappearing.
I mean, there's nonsense and nonsense - I'm not about to go pro-Brexit or anything, but a touch of nonsense in terms of giving less of a determined crap about the mini-weigh-ins and the 'Ohhhh I touched a potato on the Sabbath, I must flog myself silly' mentality, and just crack on with the business of Disappearing, pound by irritating, slow, exhausting pound.
It's worth mentioning that last night I had a somewhat lighter supper than I'd intended, which probably played a part in the nonsense of today's result, but hey - whatever works, right?
Onward, to Nonsenseville and seeing the 18 in the stones column. Technically I don't feel like I'm properly Disappearing till we reach a 17, but if I can get the first half-stone (seven pounds) done, it'll feel like progress, and to get beneath 19 again will feel like even more. So yay - nonsense for evvvveryone.
OK, low-cal, artificially sweetened nonsense for evvveryone!
Wednesday, 24 January 2018
The Rediscovery Of Legs
So - as promised, there's been action.
Not bullet from a gun, 'holy crap I'm going to die now' action, but action nevertheless.
In a nutshell, I have rediscovered my legs, and determined to put them to some use. Yesterday, I walked 8875 of my ideal 10,000 steps, while eschewing all the fun things in food life.
Well, I say that and it's monstrously unfair - actually, d (taking her inspiration from Tom Kerridge), did something remarkable with chicken and rice and tinned tomatoes, that saw me have a tasty baked chicken burger for lunch, and chicken, rice and stewed tomatoes for dinner. I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. Give me a bowl of stewed tomatoes and I'm a happy little camper. Similarly a bowl of boiled Brussel sprouts. If there's a tiny tump of boiled rice with it too, so much the better - these are the meals of my childhood, when my grandmother was poor enough to give us just carb and Something To Make It Exciting.
So - happy Tony yesterday, despite, when I came back from my walk, having to sit for about fifteen minutes in the town centre and cough up technically more lung that I'm probably supposed to own.
Today, due to an uphill detour to visit the local doctors and pick up registration forms, I tapped out at over 9000 steps, and have so far had a couple of cold Starbucks drinks - about 160 calories a shot, since you ask. Yes, technically they're caffeinated, and so I'll have to knock them on the head sooner or later, but for now, there's enough of a sensation of richness about them to get me started in the morning without especially craving what has the potential to be my downfall meal of the day, which is breakfast.
There are more stewed tomatoes in my immediate short-term future, along with potatoes tonight. The compulsion to eat a late, heavy supper, and to demand something sweet, is still there after a meal like that, but the compulsion can pretty much do one. I know, technically it's been two days, big whoop, but currently, I'm focussed forward, not letting the fatty lifestyle tempt me.
The rediscovery of legs has also undergone its first mild challenge - by the time I'd gone a few hundred yards today, the drizzle started, and my immediate reaction was positively catlike. 'Blech. Wet,' I muttered to myself, taking a look back at the flat, with its warmth, and dryness and work to be done.
'Fuck it. It's drizzle. Onward!' I said, and marched on, to the accompaniment of an audio drama.
In other news, my laptop appears to be dead and currently is refusing to rouse itself to any stimulus.
So...that's annoying.
But from a purely Disappearing standpoint - a pretty good day.
Not bullet from a gun, 'holy crap I'm going to die now' action, but action nevertheless.
In a nutshell, I have rediscovered my legs, and determined to put them to some use. Yesterday, I walked 8875 of my ideal 10,000 steps, while eschewing all the fun things in food life.
Well, I say that and it's monstrously unfair - actually, d (taking her inspiration from Tom Kerridge), did something remarkable with chicken and rice and tinned tomatoes, that saw me have a tasty baked chicken burger for lunch, and chicken, rice and stewed tomatoes for dinner. I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. Give me a bowl of stewed tomatoes and I'm a happy little camper. Similarly a bowl of boiled Brussel sprouts. If there's a tiny tump of boiled rice with it too, so much the better - these are the meals of my childhood, when my grandmother was poor enough to give us just carb and Something To Make It Exciting.
So - happy Tony yesterday, despite, when I came back from my walk, having to sit for about fifteen minutes in the town centre and cough up technically more lung that I'm probably supposed to own.
Today, due to an uphill detour to visit the local doctors and pick up registration forms, I tapped out at over 9000 steps, and have so far had a couple of cold Starbucks drinks - about 160 calories a shot, since you ask. Yes, technically they're caffeinated, and so I'll have to knock them on the head sooner or later, but for now, there's enough of a sensation of richness about them to get me started in the morning without especially craving what has the potential to be my downfall meal of the day, which is breakfast.
There are more stewed tomatoes in my immediate short-term future, along with potatoes tonight. The compulsion to eat a late, heavy supper, and to demand something sweet, is still there after a meal like that, but the compulsion can pretty much do one. I know, technically it's been two days, big whoop, but currently, I'm focussed forward, not letting the fatty lifestyle tempt me.
The rediscovery of legs has also undergone its first mild challenge - by the time I'd gone a few hundred yards today, the drizzle started, and my immediate reaction was positively catlike. 'Blech. Wet,' I muttered to myself, taking a look back at the flat, with its warmth, and dryness and work to be done.
'Fuck it. It's drizzle. Onward!' I said, and marched on, to the accompaniment of an audio drama.
In other news, my laptop appears to be dead and currently is refusing to rouse itself to any stimulus.
So...that's annoying.
But from a purely Disappearing standpoint - a pretty good day.
Monday, 23 January 2017
The Blurry Blowout
Deep joy. Hospital day, for diabetic retinopathy testing.
Basically, I have an alarming tendency to lose a whole day of work whenever I have to go and get this done - drops in the eyes, dilation of the pupils which lasts for a solid handful of hours, photographs of the back of the eye, and the Imperial March of doom as the doctor makes a judgment on whether my diabetes has thoroughly fucked my eyeballs up as yet, which would mean having lasers shot into my eyes to repair the damage.
Let me say this as clearly as I can - Fuck. That.
The whole idea of having things in my eyes freaks me right the hell out. I can't even successfully do the whole 'puff of air' test.
In fact, the idea of not succumbing to diabetic retinopathy was one of the big drivers in starting the Disappearing in the first place. Going blind is the thing that scares me secondmost, or possibly thirdmost, in the world. Ironically, I always assumed it would happen some day. Can't tell you how pissed I was to go half-deaf first - that seemed like such an inversion of my understanding with the universe.
Anyhow, today went reasonably swimmingly - I was in and out reasonably quickly. Apparently, there was some diabetic degeneration, but they were happy enough to tell me to more or less fuck off for another year, and 'No Lasers Today, Mum.'
Came home and had nothing to do for a few hours, or rather, no way of doing it, so went to bed with an audiobook while my eyeballs re-adjusted behind their lids.
That...erm...worked. Woke up several hours later with working eyeballs and a need to get my shit into gear to do my daily walk. As I say, I tend to lose most of a day whenever I have to have the retinopathy check - I'm sure there's probably nothing in the drops they give you to dilate your eyeballs that makes you exhausted. But they always seem to hit me that way.
Pretty perversely, having been dilated enough to let in lots of light, I walked by night as usual, like some kind of vampire (ironically listening to Dracula on my headphones), came home and had dinner. I have precisely no idea what happens with tomorrow's weigh-in. Nothing much good, I'm guessing - had pizza yesterday and don't seem to have recovered, weightwise, from the hit of that yet, despite having done the walk twice. Clearly something here has stopped walking - I keep wobbling back and forth over a two or three pound range. What I'm fairly confident is not happening is consistent loss any more. Something may well need to change, or be shifted up a gear, in order to get me off this goddamned borderline, and push me down towards the next one, because now it's starting to get to me. Now it's starting to seem stale - I should be further ahead than this.
So...there's that.
Basically, I have an alarming tendency to lose a whole day of work whenever I have to go and get this done - drops in the eyes, dilation of the pupils which lasts for a solid handful of hours, photographs of the back of the eye, and the Imperial March of doom as the doctor makes a judgment on whether my diabetes has thoroughly fucked my eyeballs up as yet, which would mean having lasers shot into my eyes to repair the damage.
Let me say this as clearly as I can - Fuck. That.
The whole idea of having things in my eyes freaks me right the hell out. I can't even successfully do the whole 'puff of air' test.
In fact, the idea of not succumbing to diabetic retinopathy was one of the big drivers in starting the Disappearing in the first place. Going blind is the thing that scares me secondmost, or possibly thirdmost, in the world. Ironically, I always assumed it would happen some day. Can't tell you how pissed I was to go half-deaf first - that seemed like such an inversion of my understanding with the universe.
Anyhow, today went reasonably swimmingly - I was in and out reasonably quickly. Apparently, there was some diabetic degeneration, but they were happy enough to tell me to more or less fuck off for another year, and 'No Lasers Today, Mum.'
Came home and had nothing to do for a few hours, or rather, no way of doing it, so went to bed with an audiobook while my eyeballs re-adjusted behind their lids.
That...erm...worked. Woke up several hours later with working eyeballs and a need to get my shit into gear to do my daily walk. As I say, I tend to lose most of a day whenever I have to have the retinopathy check - I'm sure there's probably nothing in the drops they give you to dilate your eyeballs that makes you exhausted. But they always seem to hit me that way.
Pretty perversely, having been dilated enough to let in lots of light, I walked by night as usual, like some kind of vampire (ironically listening to Dracula on my headphones), came home and had dinner. I have precisely no idea what happens with tomorrow's weigh-in. Nothing much good, I'm guessing - had pizza yesterday and don't seem to have recovered, weightwise, from the hit of that yet, despite having done the walk twice. Clearly something here has stopped walking - I keep wobbling back and forth over a two or three pound range. What I'm fairly confident is not happening is consistent loss any more. Something may well need to change, or be shifted up a gear, in order to get me off this goddamned borderline, and push me down towards the next one, because now it's starting to get to me. Now it's starting to seem stale - I should be further ahead than this.
So...there's that.
Friday, 20 January 2017
The Monetization Mania
I woke up this morning with a keen interest in money.
This is weird in itself - I rarely have a keen interest in money, it doesn't rule me most of the time, and as d has more than once aptly put it, 'Money is not the currency of life, love is.' But January is always an utter bastard when it comes to money, a post-Christmas hangover that seems like the longest month between pay cheques, and such an extra-special fuck-you in the mid-section when you have buggerall in the bank account and still...Jesus, how long till payday?...that you start to regret not having children cos there's bound to be a chimney sweep who could productively shove them up chimneys for grocery-money, because (flings hand to forehead in melodramatic pose) heaven forfend we should drink tap water!
Still - the day was the day, mostly by virtue of the fact that if the day were the night, it would have freaked a lot of people out, and there would have been running and screaming and suchlike nonsense.
Then this afternoon, a Facebook friend request was approved from someone I'd forgotten I'd ever sent the request to. By all accounts a groovy person, and someone connected to someone else...of whom I'm a fan.
Long story short, I'm a fan of a bloke named Mitch Benn - comedian, singer-songwriter, Who-fan, novelist. For a while when I first discovered him, I was probably riiiight there on the boy-crush/Misery borderline of fandom, because I, as it turns out, am pigging useless when it comes to people whose talent I gneuinely admire. It happens rarely, but when it does, I'm utterly hopeless. I met Billy Connolly after a gig once, and while the whole thing is a bit of a blur in my mind, I'm faaairly sure I did that thing that six year-old girls do - standing on one leg, swaying exaggeratedly left and right, saying nothing but gazing adoringly. I'm certain at one point he asked me if I was alright, or if I was having a seizure...
Anyhow - as I say, big fan of Mitch. Erm, this was Mitch, by the way, singing a pretty apposite song to the whole Disappearing Man thing, back in 2009:
As you can see, in the immortal words of Irish comedian Dara O'Briain, Mitch used to 'winter well.'
Not long after this video was shot though - in fact, semi-simultaneously with my initial Disappearing (Ohhh, the notions of sympatico that raced through my brain! I swear, I'm over it now!), Mitch took radical steps and lost a shit-ton of weight.
This was Mitch far more recently:
So there's that.
The point is, having had this Facebook friend request accepted, I got to learn what he's been upto lately (See, see, not a stalker any more, honest, didn't even know stuff...). He's just started a Patreon page. Go check it out, you'll get the idea pretty quickly.
I'd never heard of Patreon either, but it's a kind of gentle crowdfunding thing. You support artists, writers, creatives etc on a 'Per Thing' basis, and can cap your support at X-amount-per-month that you're comfortable with.
Ohhh the wheels that whirred in my tiny mind at that concept. So, say 10p or 10c per blog entry means a monthsworth for around $3. Multiply that by the number of readers and what you end up with is a seriously good motivation to blog every day. In addition, say $1 for every seven pounds lost and you wouldn't believe how focused I'd become on melting the blubber.
Now of course, this is pie in the sky (Mmm...pie...), because a) most of my readers are reassuringly poor, and couldn't afford to subsidise my gibber that way, and b) I'm not sure even I would actually pay money to read this stream-of-consciousness gibber, so I'm fairly sure what would happen is that the number of readers would either plummet, or, because of course there's no coercion or bar involved, the number of people willing to pay to support the Disappearing Man with actual moolah would be meaninglessly small. That's the difference of course - the reason Patreon works is because it supports actual art and artistry, rather than some bloke ranting about calories and walking and Nazi Scales.
But if nothing else, it got me thinking about motivations. When I learned of the Patreon concept I was all set to go off and set up some sort of payment plan for production of the blog and loss of the weight - inspired, it seems, by money. And yet the goal in and of itself is actually more important than money. It's health. It's potentially living longer, doing more, still having working kneecaps and eyeballs and kidneys (oh my!). Somehow, that goal felt more diffuse in my brain, less worth working hard towards than a handful of cash in the middle of January. Utter folly.
Clearly, it's time to get a bit of a grip. Twelve thousand steps later, my bit has been done for the day. It won't surprise you to learn I dug out some of my old Mitch Benn albums and they helped to power me up the first long hill.
It might surprise you, though being me it probably won't, that I scared the living daylights out of a jogger. I have a disturbing tendency to be...erm...very Welsh when I walk, which is to say I sing along, out fairly loud, to whatever's on my iPod. Which is fine if you're singing Mitch Benn songs on a first long hill. It gets perhaps a litttttle bit creepy when, at 5ft 6 and still flirting with the borders of 19 stone, while belting along what seems like a dark, deserted street, you break into the Frankie Valli part of 'Sherry,' suddenly and from nowhere.
Still, I'll give him his due, that jogger could put a sprint on when he felt the need...
This is weird in itself - I rarely have a keen interest in money, it doesn't rule me most of the time, and as d has more than once aptly put it, 'Money is not the currency of life, love is.' But January is always an utter bastard when it comes to money, a post-Christmas hangover that seems like the longest month between pay cheques, and such an extra-special fuck-you in the mid-section when you have buggerall in the bank account and still...Jesus, how long till payday?...that you start to regret not having children cos there's bound to be a chimney sweep who could productively shove them up chimneys for grocery-money, because (flings hand to forehead in melodramatic pose) heaven forfend we should drink tap water!
Still - the day was the day, mostly by virtue of the fact that if the day were the night, it would have freaked a lot of people out, and there would have been running and screaming and suchlike nonsense.
Then this afternoon, a Facebook friend request was approved from someone I'd forgotten I'd ever sent the request to. By all accounts a groovy person, and someone connected to someone else...of whom I'm a fan.
Long story short, I'm a fan of a bloke named Mitch Benn - comedian, singer-songwriter, Who-fan, novelist. For a while when I first discovered him, I was probably riiiight there on the boy-crush/Misery borderline of fandom, because I, as it turns out, am pigging useless when it comes to people whose talent I gneuinely admire. It happens rarely, but when it does, I'm utterly hopeless. I met Billy Connolly after a gig once, and while the whole thing is a bit of a blur in my mind, I'm faaairly sure I did that thing that six year-old girls do - standing on one leg, swaying exaggeratedly left and right, saying nothing but gazing adoringly. I'm certain at one point he asked me if I was alright, or if I was having a seizure...
Anyhow - as I say, big fan of Mitch. Erm, this was Mitch, by the way, singing a pretty apposite song to the whole Disappearing Man thing, back in 2009:
As you can see, in the immortal words of Irish comedian Dara O'Briain, Mitch used to 'winter well.'
Not long after this video was shot though - in fact, semi-simultaneously with my initial Disappearing (Ohhh, the notions of sympatico that raced through my brain! I swear, I'm over it now!), Mitch took radical steps and lost a shit-ton of weight.
This was Mitch far more recently:
So there's that.
The point is, having had this Facebook friend request accepted, I got to learn what he's been upto lately (See, see, not a stalker any more, honest, didn't even know stuff...). He's just started a Patreon page. Go check it out, you'll get the idea pretty quickly.
I'd never heard of Patreon either, but it's a kind of gentle crowdfunding thing. You support artists, writers, creatives etc on a 'Per Thing' basis, and can cap your support at X-amount-per-month that you're comfortable with.
Ohhh the wheels that whirred in my tiny mind at that concept. So, say 10p or 10c per blog entry means a monthsworth for around $3. Multiply that by the number of readers and what you end up with is a seriously good motivation to blog every day. In addition, say $1 for every seven pounds lost and you wouldn't believe how focused I'd become on melting the blubber.
Now of course, this is pie in the sky (Mmm...pie...), because a) most of my readers are reassuringly poor, and couldn't afford to subsidise my gibber that way, and b) I'm not sure even I would actually pay money to read this stream-of-consciousness gibber, so I'm fairly sure what would happen is that the number of readers would either plummet, or, because of course there's no coercion or bar involved, the number of people willing to pay to support the Disappearing Man with actual moolah would be meaninglessly small. That's the difference of course - the reason Patreon works is because it supports actual art and artistry, rather than some bloke ranting about calories and walking and Nazi Scales.
But if nothing else, it got me thinking about motivations. When I learned of the Patreon concept I was all set to go off and set up some sort of payment plan for production of the blog and loss of the weight - inspired, it seems, by money. And yet the goal in and of itself is actually more important than money. It's health. It's potentially living longer, doing more, still having working kneecaps and eyeballs and kidneys (oh my!). Somehow, that goal felt more diffuse in my brain, less worth working hard towards than a handful of cash in the middle of January. Utter folly.
Clearly, it's time to get a bit of a grip. Twelve thousand steps later, my bit has been done for the day. It won't surprise you to learn I dug out some of my old Mitch Benn albums and they helped to power me up the first long hill.
It might surprise you, though being me it probably won't, that I scared the living daylights out of a jogger. I have a disturbing tendency to be...erm...very Welsh when I walk, which is to say I sing along, out fairly loud, to whatever's on my iPod. Which is fine if you're singing Mitch Benn songs on a first long hill. It gets perhaps a litttttle bit creepy when, at 5ft 6 and still flirting with the borders of 19 stone, while belting along what seems like a dark, deserted street, you break into the Frankie Valli part of 'Sherry,' suddenly and from nowhere.
Still, I'll give him his due, that jogger could put a sprint on when he felt the need...
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