This is my journal entry from August 26, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Author in St. Petersburg — my real, unedited days, published in order.
The biggest accomplishment today was moving my website, JerryBanfield.com, off the Internet Computer Protocol and onto Carrd, a platform that costs only $49 a year and lets me host sites for other people as well. The difference is remarkable. Pages load instantly, the design tools are simple, and the finished product looks far better than the clunky mess I had before. I started from scratch, dictated about 2,000 words, and paired them with a few pictures. The result is clean, professional, and most importantly, explains who I am, where I’ve been, and where I’m headed. It feels like a proper foundation for people to discover me locally and organically.
I plan to add thousands more words in time, expanding with deeper stories and reflections. For now, I want this book about being an author in St. Petersburg to serve as my test project. It will help me practice publishing on Amazon before I put I Was Famous on the Internet into the world. This test book won’t receive much editing. I’ll release it as raw truth—details of what actually happened.
The workflow came together seamlessly today. I dictated for twenty minutes while parked near my AA meeting, then ran the text through ChatGPT, formatted it on Carrd, added images, experimented with colors, and published. I set up my second phone number for direct texts and created an email list for updates whenever I release new books. The whole process energized me.
A massage therapist friend has been on my mind as well. I messaged her yesterday about scheduling another massage, and I love the idea of trading skills—my marketing and website-building for her bodywork. That possibility lit a fire under me to get my site polished so I could show her what I can do. ChatGPT suggested I should charge $750 or more for setting up a site like this. That feels fair, yet I’d be just as happy trading for a massage or two. Money matters less to me than connection and reciprocity, and it feels good to offer my skills in a way that directly helps someone like a massage therapist friend.
This morning, before AA, I went to yoga at my yoga studio. On the way in, I noticed a bag of dried greens called moringa sitting by the front desk. I’d never heard of it, so I bought a bag for eight dollars. Before the drive to my meeting, hungry, I ate a couple of handfuls straight from the bag. It tasted good and left me feeling full, but by the middle of the meeting—sitting between my sponsor and my former sponsee—I could feel my stomach rebelling. Rumbling turned into a heavier sensation lower down, and that’s when I realized maybe moringa isn’t meant to be eaten raw. The instructions suggested blending or cooking it, but nowhere did it say not to eat it plain.
After the meeting, my fears were confirmed. I had what can only be described as a blowout in the bathroom. I was grateful for forty-one years of experience teaching me never to trust a fart in moments like that. Some people would have canceled their lunch plans after such an episode, but not me. I met my life coach, my life coach, at a restaurant as planned. I stuck to sodas and avoided solid food until I was sure my system had settled.
Strangely, my mind resisted seeing her today despite always enjoying our time together before. On the way over, I heard an endless loop of complaints: Life coaching is pointless. She’s not adding any value. You don’t need this. You shouldn’t have paid for this. You have more important things to do. By the time I arrived, I felt weighed down with reluctance. The contrast was sharp when my life coach greeted me with genuine excitement while I felt flat and unenthusiastic.
As usual, I led with honesty. I told her exactly how I felt. We unpacked it together, and I realized part of the resistance was subconscious. She had planned to revisit the sexual issues I’d raised in our first session, topics I had been avoiding since. On some level, I knew she was steering us there today, and the resistance showed up as dread.
My life coach asked me to write down the kinds of thoughts I’d be ashamed for others to know about. I wrote them honestly. We discussed how rebellious streaks have defined much of my life—fighting my dad as a child, refusing to get a real job for a decade, deleting all my content as an adult, and now choosing to write books instead of chasing algorithms. Even the contrast between our first session, where I came in eager and prepared, and this one, where I arrived resistant and disengaged, reflected that pattern.
When it came to sex, I admitted the number one thing troubling me is that my mind has no rules. Thoughts go wherever they want, indifferent to expectations, decency, or social boundaries. Thoughts themselves aren’t illegal, but they often leave me feeling shame. My life coach reframed it: thought patterns exist because at some point they worked for us. As we grow and change, the old codes no longer serve and must be reprogrammed.
That clicked. As a single man unable to have a real sex life for more than a decade, my thinking patterns were filled with fantasy and appropriate for that environment. As a married man of fourteen years, those old thought patterns are no longer helpful. Despite not being needed, some of those old programs still run in the background, but now I am conscious of wanting to let them go. I want my thoughts to align with my current reality. Most importantly, I don’t want to heap shame on myself for thinking them. My actions are what matter. For more than fourteen years, my intimate life has been entirely with my ex-wife. That consistency speaks louder than whatever mental chatter arises.
AA teaches the same principle: actions define you, not thoughts. You can dream or imagine anything, but if your actions are kind, disciplined, and loving, that is who you are to everyone else. Today’s coaching reminded me to relax about my thoughts and focus on gratitude for my actions. My actions are strong, honorable, and consistent. The thoughts can be reprogrammed, just as I’ve done in so many other areas. Awareness is the first step.
By the end of our session, I felt loved, accepted, and lighter. My life coach’s personal experience gave depth to her guidance, and I left grateful I hadn’t canceled. The difference between how I walked in and how I walked out was night and day.
Afterward, I picked up the kids, entertained them with detailed stories about my “Hershey Squirts,” and took them to McDonald’s. Later we played Go Fish, where I beat my son for the second time that day. The rest of the evening I poured into my website, refining it until I was satisfied.
Getting the site live was one of the final steps I wanted to complete before starting massage school. The last remaining piece is to submit this book, order author copies, and hold it in my hands. Once I can pass it around—saying, This is what I write, and I can help you write one too—I’ll have everything in place to begin this next chapter.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.