Slept really bad last 4 days while working night shifts. Attempting one arm chins, etc every 2 to 3 days doesn't seem to cause sleep like doing them every day. Although so many additional factors... Got to sleep better!!! So stopping all heavy weight lifting. Has to be light enough that I can do at least two quick sets of 30.

Thinking also that as I wake up over and over again during bad sleep, each time I have to reorient self. I need to do so in a fake positive way. Need to join the positivity cult during the moments of these repeated awakenings for the sake of my health.

Despite 4 days of bad sleep I miracously felt up to running yesterday for first day off and managed 18:00 for 2 miles. Rest 3 minutes and 10:17 for one more (blah). And 3:57 for a final half mile.
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Don Blankenship is a good example of human society. It only takes a very few people like him to act in such a manner, to throw out all morals in order to make as much as money as possible. As a result he reaps huge profits and his corporation is growing and growing. Even as he has this disaster he's in the process of buying up yet another company for a billion dollars. All the while he claims his corporation, which has the worst safety record, has the best. To put it bluntly, the shit rises to the top in this world. The 'winners' are those who will do anything, no matter how depraved.

This disaster is no big deal in view of the fact that each year the total number of miners out right killed is about this number. Not to mention all the people who slowly die as a result of chronic inhalation issues, back issues, etc. Add that and the number of lives ruined each year is at least a magnitude higher.

And all taking part in a sort of 'conspiracy' where they each recognize it's unsafe, the air is polluted, etc and no one says anything as they know they'll lose their job if they do.

Is modern society leading people into isolation?

Metafilter-Isolation in America

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/todd-kashdan/how-to-be-happy----emotio_b_492158.html

Noticed many times in life that I seem to run much better/faster when I also am riding a bike. Recall first running a mile in 6:04 in high school gym class just from a bit of basketball and riding a bike really hard. Later noticed played basketball much better/much better agility here and there when I really rode an exercise bicycle hard.

So the lunges I had been doing are similar but a higher intensity which I was thinking could cause me going into overtraining/insomnia. So switched to riding a bike. First ride 4 days ago on Thursday for an hour. On Friday I ran 2 miles in 20 minutes, rested 3 minutes and ran an additional mile in 11 minutes. Rested and ran half a mile in 4:25. The previous run I had managed 2 miles in 20:45 a week earlier, but with 5 pound dumbells. Rode a bike another hour on Saturday (bit faster than previously, 5 minute improved ment for 30 minutes, much greater improvement for an hour). Today, Sunday, ran 2 miles in 18:26. Rested 90 seconds and ran another mile in 10 minutes. Rested again and ran another half mile in 4:13. Huge improvments. Ridiculous considering how long I can otherwise plateau at slower times.

Cautiously must say, this running is making my back entirely better. Last night even slept on stomach and didn't wake up with any pain. More and more such is the case.

After almost beating my rightwing brother-in-law to a bloody pulp at christmas had decided to avoid him permantly to avoid ending up in jail. All kinds of fights have ensued with parents who would much rather me risk jail and show up to eat a meal (that isn't even considerate to veganism anyway) a few times a year as if it even matters. As if the considerable risk has any kind of reward anyway beyond some paper thin facade. So to avoid endless more arguments and fights being forced to eat Easter dinner today. As the actual me has never existed with my parents. Me almost losing it and turning rightwing dumbass into mush is dismissed as not real. So in future will do best to switch work schedules with people such that I work all holidays. Never cared much about holidays anyway.

But the running is such fun. How I've missed being able to move with a bit of speed for an extended distance. The bike riding is actually better also. Beautiful weather now also. Feel like documenting how beautiful my house is, etc right now. Just to try to prove to myself that it's real. It's not all holocausts and slavery.

Also, still think work is basically wonderful. When compared to the previous jobs I've had. You see, it could be worse. Could be a story, Slave Training. First: just put them through hellraiser type environment. So my work, it could be much, much worse. This I know very well. And must remember. Other than that. It's still ugly capitalism. Middle management isn't very intelligent. In fact intelligent people just don't go into middle management it seems. I've noticed this over and over again, job after job. It takes a stupid sort of person to be the overseer. And of course, the overseer is someone to fear, someone who will crack the whip. And because, again, they're not very intelligent, they might misassess you at anytime. At any time on a whim, your life could be destroyed.

And again, it's capitalism. No matter the technological innovation, the people who have jobs will always be working about as much as they can stand. And the "ruling class" figures the best way to keep them up on this edge is through fear.

Middle management, IOW the overseers, keep the fear on. That's what they're there for. What kind of person wants to be the overseer? I notice also, they DO NOT take a fellow worker, someone who's been out with working with the rest of us for years and years and make them overseers. It has to be someone farther away. So, they take someone who's only been a nurse 6 months, but has some connection, and give her a high ranking position. Or someone who's not even from the hospital. Or from some other area of the hospital who hardly even knows that specialty.

Such is how it is because, your boss isn't your friend in capitalism. The system works by fear so they can't be your friend. But it could be worse. Way, way, way worse. This job is a paradise compared to my previous jobs in both science and engineering.

Been sleeping so good these last few days. Possibly because I'm sleeping at night. Possibly because I've so long off (6 days) that work is far away enough that I've just not thought about it (thus no stress). Possibly the exercise.

From reading the end of Omnivore's Dillemma am eating a lot of mushrooms. Wonder the nutritional benefits of them. Perhaps they have some unknown benefits? Been frying them with onions and Earth Balance then adding rice, broccoli, peas, etc. Tastes very good. So easy actually to make.

Garrison Keiler short ramble on the loss of community in the TV/internet era.
With mostly horrific comments. But what kind of person would be even trying to communicate there in the first place?

Had been thinking of undeleting facebook account, as they make it easy to do so. Wanted to get someone's phone number. But better to just wait till I next see them.

May have found a cello teacher. She wants me to go buy a 2000 dollar cello though. J wasn't happy about that. Started an argument, trying to portray me as a spendthrift when actually I have no debt and 10,000 dollars sitting in my checking account. This was while I was still feeling sleep deprived. Not having slept decently for days on end. And the resulting bad physical feeling was causing a heightened state of fear/tension/anxiety for day after day. Then her going on about a cello, when in a decade I've basically bought a computer and that's it. And sometimes I drive down the road and think how nice it would be if I just yanked the steering wheel... And finally, had enough. Shut up!

Bought a bike pump, bike rack, and non f me up the a bike seat. By the time we drove home I'm so tired I'm feeling delirious. So long since I slept decently. I lay in the passenger seat with the seat back all the way down and look out the side back window at the trees and houses. It's like being a child again. I've no concern for the actual driving of the car. Endless houses pass me by. I wonder who might live in these houses... It's like seeing what I see everyday from an entirely different point of view, seeing it brand new.

Almost half asleep I write a song. No plans to remember it. I write and forget all my vocal/lyric songs.

We get home and I stagger out of the car like a sleepy 6 year old.

J says I snored while sleeping. I don't normally snore and I would normally want her to wake me for her sake. But she figured for once that would be a really bad idea, and she's right, it would have been a really bad idea. I might have gone nuclear I think. (sigh) And I'm not that sort of person at all....

I have a nightmare where my current boss is teacher and I haven't done my assignment. And now it's due. What am I going to do!!! I considered running off and becoming a homeless person. I slowly wake still trying to figure out the answer. Totally awake and still I sit there trying to figure out what to do about this. Trying and trying and finally, what the hell am I doing? This didn't really happen. Quit torturing myself.

I want to lay there until it's time for J to get up. 10 minutes before the alarm I'm allowed to wake her up for snuggles. So I lay there for an hour. Finally go down, put bike rack on, put new seat on, then come back get snuggles. Then off in car to ride bike.

In the car I put in Skinny Puppy-Bites-Dead Lines. Haven't listened to it in so long. After finally sleeping well music sounds so good. Plus remembering the far past. Monterey, Calinfornia. The long runs out under the sun. I possibly didn't even have this particular album then, but it works for me. A nostalgia. Perhaps largely based on a faulty memory. But a past time when I felt such hope at least.

It's too cold to enjoy the bike ride much. The faster I go the more wind chill. Right thumb really starts hurting. But on the way back huge hill, push myself to the very edge making it up it. Wonderful feeling to be that exhausted. To push myself to the very edge. Then lay there exhausted. Outside.

I imagine something. Some place where this is a daily occurence.

Stop at very cheap restaurant on the way home and have coffee, OJ and blueberry pancakes. Read about WV in the final four. The coffee hits me so nice. I'm shaking slightly, so cold still from the run. Perfect. There's three somewhat distinguished older black men at this diner. That's so unusual for here. Black peope do live here. Do they normally just not eat out...?

They look like me though. In a way whites around here never do. Big boned. Sharp faces. Wisdom combined with tough lives. The whites generally look like puff balls. Like they've had it so cushy. Like they've got nothing in them.

Home. Another minnow is dead and this time it's confirmed. It's body has been snapped in half. The one cat is killing them. Have to go get the glass before she kills anymore. Down to 9 minnows in a 80 gallon tank. I feel guilty to stick large fish in only an 80 gallon tank. Not quite so guilty that I'm not writing this before I go get the glass apparently... They're just tinsy minnows...

The anxiety. The insomnia. The fear. The physical pain.

Robin Hobb's best book is the one where the main character is put through the worst hell of all. In reality she's a somewhat annoying cheery lady. Yet her characters are always going through hell. But Fitz the Bastard had a very special hell indeed.

At the moment I think I'll get through this life without ever having an actual breakdown. I don't think I'll start having actual panic attacks. I don't think I'll end up long term unemployed... Lately though having feelings that really do go in that direction. And I want to try to closely document them. For one thing, to try to head them off. For another possibly to someday help others understand these feelings happening within themselves. And finally because I want to blow Hobb and her Fitz out of the water.