Rework, Rearange, Retry.

It’s not really an interesting story, a need late at night to change your whole life. To research, restructure and make a plan. To swear that you’ll put that plan into action starting tomorrow. You’re gonna be different, this time will be different.

It’s never different, its and exercise in what, madness? It’s never worked, not for me, except for once. Even then I had to make that resolution to myself a hundred times before it ever stuck. What was at stake then vs now? The answer to that is pretty simple, my future, my whole life was at stake when I was drinking, the people around me, my reputation - all of it. Even still as I sit here knowing I should be in bed, knowing I should be prepping myself for these changes, I’m writing out this stupid silly little note to myself, maybe I’ll post it on my website, maybe I won’t.

I have high cholesterol (the bad kind) and I’m pre-diabetic, and fat. Why doesn’t this have the same ferocity, a need for change that I had when I quit drinking? So many things are still at stake, my life literally can hang in the balance with these things, my future will be painful and bleak if I don’t get healthier now, what’s stopping me? Is bread really THAT good? Do I really have that little self control? Why do I keep putting off the changes I need to make, why do I fear them so much?

The idea of jogging down the sidewalk and someone, anyone seeing me makes me so incredibly anxious, but why? Why does the thought that someone might judge me for moving my body stop me from doing it, why doesn’t the fact that I can’t comfortably fit in an airplane seat bother me in the same way?

It’s crazy, because I like healthy foods, genuinely. I ate three salads since Friday, but I also ate two whole baguettes, like 20 chicken tenders, a box of macaroni and cheese, probably a gallon of beans, and like 10 uncrustables. It’s only Tuesday! I forgot to mention the low-calorie ice cream pint, the Oreos, the glass of (soy) milk, and tea bowls of cereal.

The idea of maintaining a productive and consistent sleep schedule is a wild concept. I did this for a while, but I stagnated, I snoozed my alarm more and more, then work got crazier and I was working till 2 or 3am some nights, now I’m sleeping past noon.

What about me makes it so difficult to keep my shit together? I guess I have to keep at it until something, anything finally sticks, or until it’s almost too fucking late.

Go Home, Lady

Yesterday the Fort Worth Weekly posted an article about W7th, and it’s got me bit fired up. My contemporaries and I hear nearly constant attacks on the W7th entertainment district, and some of the criticisms are fair, occasionally spot on.  

But this article is lazy journalism. Written by a self-proclaimed home-body with no interest or desire to leave the house, let alone go to the busiest bar district in Fort Worth. She starts by rating the Bruschetta at Social House a 6/10 and this felt like a personal attack, that bruschetta is one of my favorite foods in the district. She then specifically tells us not to expect her to remember the names of the bars she went to, because there are too many and they run together. Keeping track of where you are, and have been for an assignment feels like journalism 101 to me, and not all that hard considering the bars in W7th are so well branded they give the Dallas Cowboys a run for their money. She goes on to complain about the migraine-inducing house music and uncomfortable barstools, and an Irish Pub with Notre Damn fans being too exited about the game for her comfort. 

The plot really starts to unravel for me as she starts to shoe-horn in a story about feminism in the work place (an irony considering she was too afraid to tell her presumably male editor that the assignment wasn’t for her, because bars are not for her) and the general safety of women in a bar district. She talks about the uniforms she saw at many of the bars, scantily clad women, their male counterparts in comfortable pants and branded t’shirts. This line isn’t a new one, and I’m absolutely not going to tell you that these women aren’t overtly sexualized, or that harassment doesn’t happen. I’m going to push back on the idea that these women don’t have a choice in the matter, the author is placing these women in the object category as much as the men who tip them more because they’re wearing a leotard and contoured their boobs. Every woman I’ve met on 7th street is smart and talented, you have to be to work in a job this physically and mentally demanding, especially at this level. A woman working on 7th street can get a job at practically any bar in North Texas, they have the skills, and the powerhouse of recognition in the industry to claim any bar job they want, but they choose to stay, for the money or the vibes, I’m not the one to say for them. 

The author made some okay points like how she wasn’t harassed, how the drinks where better priced than she anticipated, and most importantly that she’d be more comfortable on her couch with a bowl ice cream than in any bar ever at all. She missed a thousand and one hot takes a person could have about 7th street and jumped straight to making a half-baked statement about the autonomy of women in the industry, or the intersection of feminism and clubs. Points that could be argued, but not by the self proclaimed mom-friend who went home at 10pm visits four bars.

P.S. Bottled Blonde is not for people who want to dance but don’t want a full on club, that shit is the club. 

1 year, 9 Months and a day sober.

I can’t escape the feeling of being a disappointment or being a failure today. Like Somehow I’m still not ✨doing enough✨. I know I’m doing enough, and I know this feeling will pass, but my feelings just aren’t listening. 

It’s been a while since I’ve done a sobriety update, and a day where I’m feeling down on myself seems like a good day to shout my accomplishments to the internet. 

I, with the help of my business partner and an incredible support system of friends, family and employees have managed to get a new business open, idk if you’ve heard of it yet or not 😂. Let me tell you, I’ve never felt so lost or tempted in my whole life as I was when we  developed the menu, fruity tropical boozy drinks? In this heat!? Pass me one! But I stayed strong, I straw tested a few, but set some pretty strict limits. 

I got myself a mans! That’s been a (really fun) roller coaster, anyone who’s known me for the last decade or so know that I haven’t been in a relationship, let alone a serious one for that decade or more. And His name is Chris, and he’s wonderful. Nobody tell him, but I think I like him a lot. 

That’s just two really great things of the thousands of wins, smiles and laughs that have happened over the last 21 months, so much good that’s it’s hard to remember it all.

Sometimes days like today a person needs to remind themselves of all they have, and where they’ve come from. Some perspective. Typing all this has helped quite a bit actually. Thank you for reading, no matter what you’re going through today, it’s will pass. 

M81, M82 & NGC3077

I have some more editing to do on this, but I couldn’t wait to share these beautiful galaxies. The spiral galaxy in the center is M81, and is nearly 12 million light years away in the Big Dipper.

The one to the right is known as the Cigar Galaxy or M82, a starburst galaxy that churns out new stars at a rate thirty times what our home galaxy, The Milky Way does.

At the top of the frame you can see NGC 3077, a very small emission line galaxy, about 13 million light years from us.

You can also see a small few dots in a line near the bottom left quadrant, I believe they are Starlink Satelites.