This is my journal entry from October 28, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Book 5 — Daily Autobiography — my real, unedited days, published in order.
Another day in the shitter—although I think there was a small breakthrough buried in it somewhere. Last night, before bed, I had this thought that I figured would be funny later, even though it wasn’t funny at all in the moment. I told myself, you know what, I’ve been at this every day for a while now, and I’m not even that into it tonight. After everything I said yesterday, maybe I’ll just give it a rest. I took a shower, got into bed, and decided I was going straight to sleep. I laid there for about two minutes before my brain went, my God… fuck it. Yeah. So much for that plan.
I wake up today in a pissy-ass mood. I pick the kids up and I’m down, barely talking to them, just moving through the motions. I go to yoga and I’m already fucked up again from being back on the dating apps. Thankfully, the woman from yoga isn’t there today, so I don’t have to perform my petty-bitch routine. A yoga instructor teaches a really nice flow, and my body feels good, but my mind is toxic the whole time—complaining, bitching, whining about everything. Still, by the end of class, I feel a little better. Not great, but better than when I walked in.
I go home, listen to more of The Book of Sheen by Charlie Sheen, and get ready for my friend an older friend to come over so we can dictate his book. Before he arrives, I swipe my fucking thumb almost raw on the dating apps. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I download a sober dating app called Loosid. Not one match. Not one like. Same thing on Bumble. I swipe until I literally run out of women who match my filters. Same thing on Hinge. And at some point it starts to feel like maybe the universe is trying to send me a message: this is not the best use of your time.
An older friend comes over and we record about an hour of his book. I show up for him, but I can feel how scattered and confused I am inside. I’m not as present as I want to be. We talk through his stuff, I give him feedback, we have some good conversations, and then as soon as he leaves, I blow another two hours swiping fucking dating profiles. Just numbing myself out with it.
I head to my AA meeting feeling like shit and still confused, and I share more or less the same kind of stuff I’d share here. One thing I do notice, though, is that at least I don’t want to drink. And when my mind gets bitchy and crazy today, it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. I remember what my shares sounded like a year or two sober: yeah, I had a fight with my ex-wife today and then I laid on the couch feeling completely wrecked for hours. That’s not where I am anymore. It is getting better. That realization gives me a little bit of hope, even on a day like this.
After the meeting, I come home and finish the divorce course. I get a 95 percent on the final exam. I miss one question about some stupid, totally irrelevant term, but I get everything else right. Honestly, the test is pretty easy. The questions are basically like, do you beat your kids or not? No. Correct answer. Or, is it appropriate to cut off visitation if someone doesn’t pay child support? No, you don’t do that, even if it feels logical to try to hold it over their head. It’s not legal, and that part matters.
Then at six o’clock I go over to my ex-wife’s house to take the kids and do bedtime so she can go out to Pilates and a book club. I’m genuinely glad she can get out and do her thing, and I’m glad I get the time with the kids. We settle in, do the bedtime routine, and for a moment the noise in my head quiets down. The day’s still been rough, but at least it ends with me doing something that feels solid and right.
We went over to my mom’s house. She asks, how are you doing? And I’m like, piss poor. She kind of pauses, like she doesn’t really have time for that answer right now. That phrase always makes me laugh a little, because that’s exactly what my grandfather used to say—my dad’s dad. Anytime someone asked how he was doing, he’d say, piss poor. There was something honest about it. No fluff. No pretending. When people ask how you’re doing and expect “good” every time, sometimes I just don’t have the fucking time to tell you the truth. You caught me with an autopilot question. Maybe I should start disrupting those more often. How are you doing today? Well, I’ve had a decent enough day, so pretty good. Or, I haven’t had sex in a month, so honestly kind of shitty—how do you think I’m doing?
Earlier I was thinking I’d try to keep this clean, maybe do some boring-ass autobiography where I calmly read through my day: I was depressed, I felt like a total failure at life, I’m making no money, I’ve got no girl. I used to think I was this honorable guy who made all this money the right way, that any woman would be lucky to ride me, and if my ex-wife said she’d had enough, well, as my grandfather would say, wrong again, boy. Wrong again.
I did have a small breakthrough tonight, though—right after a quadruple-stuffed Golden Oreo. That bitch was good. Fuck. But also, it really wasn’t that good. After a few bites, I’m like, yeah, that’s enough. I actually get more sensation eating a strawberry, or hummus, or something spicy. My mom had bought double-stuffed golden Oreos. My son had one. I grabbed two, ripped the cookies off, smashed them together, and made myself a four-stuffer. Took the first bite and immediately knew I didn’t want another one. Which is fine—it’s probably 120 calories. Throwaway calories. Not going to give me diabetes or anything having one. Earlier I had a little squirt of honey, a salad, and my usual hummus. I realize I haven’t heated anything up in three weeks at this house. Haven’t used a stove once. I don’t even have a microwave. I just pull shit out of the refrigerator and shove it down my throat. Yeah, I heard that too. That line went gay fast. Or bisexual. Whatever. Moving on.
After hanging out at my mom’s, the kids shower. I’m irritable. Whiny. I cry a little bit. Then I put them to bed, snuggle them up, cry a little more, and give them five dollars each for getting into bed by 8:25 p.m. That feels like decent parenting. Not perfect, but decent.
Then something clicks. I realize I need to get my shit together. Serenity to change the things I can change. I can’t choose whether these women want to fuck me or not. I can’t control whether they’d rather scroll on their goddamn phone than spend time with me. That’s out of my hands. And I catch myself spiraling into that harsh internal voice—how fucking stupid you fucking are. I’m trying to remember where that line comes from, and then it hits me: Pulp Fiction. Vincent Vega, when he sees that Mia snorted his heroin. You know how fucking stupid you fucking are? That’s exactly how I’m talking to myself tonight. And underneath all of it, that’s the real question I keep circling: what are you actually upset about right now?
I’m really upset because I didn’t do anything with my audiobooks or my books today. I mean, I did help an older friend dictate an hour of his book, and that counts for something, but I did diddly shit for my own books. And that’s the thing—I have so much I want to do with them. That’s what’s actually eating at me. When I slow down enough to be honest, I can see it clearly: it’s time to pick a priority. I can’t keep pretending everything is equally important, because it’s not.
So what’s it going to be? Either I make dating my top priority and scroll the fucking dating apps all day, pay for premium versions of all of them, chase matches, chase attention—and then suddenly I’ve got no time or energy left to write or narrate books. And even if I do end up dating someone, what am I bringing to the table? I deleted all my shit online. I’m not building anything. I’m not making money. So what’s the end game there?
That’s when it starts to land. I need to pick something. I need a main thing. And slowly, almost quietly, the answer shows up: books. Books need to be number one. Books, books, books. Dating can be something on the side, something that happens if there’s time and space for it. But the books have to be the focus. Instead of talking to women just to try to pick them up, I should be giving them a goddamn book. Put the book in their hands. If I give the right woman the right book, shit—she might want to date me after that. But this wandering around asking women if they want to go to their car and talk, like I did at my yoga studio, or instantly fantasizing about marrying someone I just met at the spiritual community—that’s not it. That’s not grounded. What I should be doing is passing books out, talking about what I’m writing, asking people what they read, and getting my work into their hands.
When I really think it through, there are two paths. If I make dating the top priority, maybe I find some woman with money who lets me move in. Maybe. Or maybe I just spend endless hours swiping and dating and accomplish nothing except a few nasty, hollow hookups that leave me feeling worse afterward. Or I leave someone else feeling bad. Maybe a really hot woman gives me a pity fuck, then doesn’t want to do it again, and I feel rejected all over again. That path feels empty.
The other path is clear. Books are number one. This feels like a breakdown turning into a breakthrough. I’m married to my books right now. I need to narrate the shit out of them every day. Produce written versions too. Some books will be audio-only. Some will have both formats that I can give away. I can grind out audiobooks consistently. What I really want is this image: me sitting at a coffee shop with fifteen fucking books laid out on the table. I’m not there to date. I’m there to work. And if a woman comes up and says, damn, what’s with all these books with your face on them? Then I give her one. My phone number’s in the book. If something comes from that, great. If not, I’m still doing my work.
That’s the shift. I need a primary focus in my life, and that focus needs to be books. Even at meetings, I need to check my intention. Am I there trying to pass out books, or am I there trying to fuck something? Because I know for damn sure I don’t want to be going to meetings trying to fuck. I’ve seen how that plays out. There’s a guy locally—no shit—who’s tried to fuck every hot woman at the meetings. And what happens? The rest of us lose all the hot women there, and is he happy? No. He’s a sex addict. He’s never happy. It’s always a bad fuck too. Maybe it feels decent in the moment, but afterward everybody feels worse, more alone. Nobody stays the night. He never has a relationship. It’s just this endless cycle of emptiness. When I look at that, it hits me how sad that actually is. And it makes the choice even clearer.
I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be the dude circling meetings and yoga classes trying to get laid. I want to be the guy who passes out inspirational, funny, mind-expanding books—and some woman gets hold of one, reads it, and thinks, I’ve got to have him. That means patience. And patience is a lot easier when you actually know what you’re doing, when you can see the bigger picture instead of flailing around desperate for relief.
I’ve got to be real here, like I always am. Right before this realization hit, I was getting really down. Like dark. The kind of low where the negative voice piles on and tells you nothing’s working — no dating, books not selling, no money. I’ve learned over the years to recognize that voice for what it is, and not to take it as the truth about my life.
I remember hearing this story about a guy who wrote a book he was incredibly proud of. He sent it to publishers and agents, got rejected everywhere, and gave up on it completely. After he was gone, his mom got the book published and it became a bestseller. And I’m like, you don’t want to be the guy who quits right before it works, do you? See, this is why you learn from other people’s experience — keep going.
I don’t make plans around those thoughts. I don’t act on them. What I do act on is inspiration, and today, finally, that showed up again. Clear as day. All I need to do is focus on my books, and the rest of my life will work itself out. I don’t need all the details. What was killing me today was that feeling of not knowing what to do. Just tell me what to do. Give me something solid.
And then, right in the middle of that, a reader from the tennis club texts me. Perfect timing. I had already sent him Author in St. Petersburg, and he left me a huge, raving five-star review. After that, I sent him I Was Famous on the Internet. Tonight, I sent him The Kind Divorce—the second book in the Daily Autobiography series. He bought it within two hours. And I’m like, there it is. There’s your sign. You’ve got something. You’re literally just talking off the top of your head, writing honestly about where you’re at, giving this stuff to random people—and they’re buying it. I gave him the first one. He bought the next two. Hello.
If I crank out fifty books, give people the first one or two, some of them are going to buy twenty or thirty. And some of them are going to tell twenty or thirty of their friends. This is what I can do. This is my thing. Nobody else does this like I do. I can do it every day. I’m almost done with Charlie Sheen’s book—it's good—but he grinds out movies and TV shows. This is my grind. Brutally honest, funny, inspiring books that lead by example. That’s what I’m built for. And that’s what I need to be doing, not swiping on goddamn dating apps.
If I’m going to be on a screen, it needs to be to make audiobooks. Then I give them out locally. Not chasing online promotion—handing them to real people. That leads to local speaking gigs, local bookstores, and honestly, maybe romance too. Because when a woman reads something like this and thinks, oh my God, he can write like this? — that’s a real connection. That’s how this actually works.
It’s been good to question my beliefs today. I usually think the Universe is magical—that if I picture the woman I want and get myself ready, she’ll just show up. And today I went hard in the opposite direction. Like, no. If I don’t hunt, if I don’t swipe endlessly, it’s not going to happen. My beliefs are bullshit. The Universe doesn’t have my back. It just gets me excited and fucks me when I’m not paying attention.
But that didn’t stick. When I really sat with it, I realized I do trust the Universe. I trust human consciousness. I trust being guided when I’m actually aligned. I’m on board with that. Let’s do this. I want to tell an amazing story. I want a life that’s great. And the way there—for me—is books.
My mind keeps telling me all these negative stories about my ex-wife today. Stuff like she’s leaving you behind, she wanted this divorce more than you. That part’s bullshit, even though she’s been less wavering about it than I have. But when I strip all the noise away, the truth underneath it is hard to ignore: My ex-wife gave me exactly what I said I wanted. The chance to be with a hot younger woman and have more kids. The chance to be with someone who genuinely supports my work. The chance to have more sex with someone who actually wants it. And the chance—maybe the biggest one—to write my books. Because if I were still living in that house with her, none of this would be happening. I wouldn’t have this kind of material. I wouldn’t be sitting here talking like this, going this far, saying all this shit out loud. I couldn’t. This is something I can do now because I’m alone.
I’ve got a house to myself. There’s that old Ying Yang Twins song about doing everything “by myself” — but for me, right now, this is about writing these books by my goddamn self. For real. I have the space now to do this kind of creative work, undistracted. No one in the bedroom pulling my attention away. No distractions. I’ve even been using my left hand more lately for everyday things because my right hand does so much already — tennis, writing, everything else. The left hand can’t get lazy. Put it to work. And honestly, there’s something kind of peaceful about that.
I actually feel grateful tonight. Grateful that there isn’t some hot woman here wanting to fuck me, because that would be incredibly distracting. I’ll have that someday. I don’t doubt that. And I need the contrast to really appreciate it when it comes. I’ve felt like a loser the last few days, no question. But that’s part of it. You don’t really appreciate victory unless you’ve tasted defeat. And right now, this is what defeat tastes like. One minute you’re Mr. Married—life’s perfect, wife’s hot, sex is good, kids are great, money’s fine. And the next minute you’re alone in a house, living off your wife’s cash, watching the bank account drain, not sure what you’re doing for work, not making money, and feeling like nobody I’m actually interested in wants me right now.
So yeah, this is a taste of defeat. Everybody’s telling you how sorry they are for where you’re at. But I can already see the other side of this. Someday people are going to be like, goddamn, I’m jealous of that motherfucker. Look at him with that hot woman, those kids, and all those book royalties. A hundred books now. I’ve read fifty of them. That’s the picture. And right now, I’m loading myself up to appreciate that joy when it comes. In the meantime, it smells like defeat in here. But I’m weirdly having a good time with it. I’m definitely funnier when I’m suffering a little. Maybe someday I’ll figure out how to be just as funny without suffering so much. We’ll see.
I think that’s about it for tonight. It’s 10:50 p.m., which gives me just enough time to go to bed properly. Like Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. You know what you’re going to do? You’re going to go in there, say goodnight, thank her for a good time, go home, get some rest, and that’s all you’re going to do. Thank you.
Thank you, Jesus, for not putting a hot woman in this house right now who wants me, because I would be completely distracted by my lust for her. And since I already went on a whole religion rant last night, I might as well keep it going. Dear Jesus—if you’re real—here’s what I’d like. I’ll follow you and love you forever if you produce a beautiful woman who only wants me. She wants me, and only me, every day. She wants a couple of kids with me. She’s got enough of her own life together that I can keep writing all these books, and we live in a nice house close to my existing kids.
And while you’re at it, Jesus, I’d like us all to take family trips together. I’ll bring the ex-wife and the new wife. I’ll roll in with both of them like I’ve got two wives, and people will be like, damn, look at this winner. There’s Jerry Banfield. That fucking winner. Winning. That seems reasonable to me. Don’t you think so?
I see women whose profiles are all God and Jesus and church, and I’m like, alright, here’s the deal. If your faith leaves you happy, present every day, taking care of the kids properly, sharing the load—then yeah, maybe I’ll come to church with you. If it gets you to want a life like that, shit, I’m in.
Alright, Jesus, I think I’m done. Please help me cut this recording off. What? You could give me what I want immediately? No, no, no — I’ve heard the old line about being careful what you wish for. Let’s not get into the weird stuff.
That actually reminds me of something Tony Rodrigues talked about in Project Star Maker — he described being an extraterrestrial with no way to act on desire, just trapped in it. I’m like, yeah — hard pass. So, Jesus, just give me a great life that matches what I described earlier.
Alright, Jesus, let’s wrap this recording up. I’m busy. I’m doing something important. I’m carrying a message to the people. I’m carrying your message right now. Amen.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.