This is my 5,020th day on YouTube, and I'm filming this vlog for February 25th, 2025. I woke up today at about 7 a.m., as usual. I got up and had my Lara bars for breakfast, and Laura took the kids to school this morning. I got a couple of music videos filmed, and I'm wondering if I can slightly improve my workflow. But I really love it. I can crank a song out in like 10 minutes. I just play with some presets, and it's awesome. I also recorded yesterday's vlog, and I recorded one crypto video. Then I had some hummus for lunch at like 10:30 in the morning, really early.
My Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting
Then I went to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I meet my sponsor there, and I got called on to share in the meeting today. The topic was on staying sober and living sober. It's hard to even remember the precise topic or what I shared right now, but I sat next to my sponsor, and he shared about how, for an alcoholic, it's an accomplishment just not to take a drink every day. And I shared that I don't want to forget that I'm an alcoholic, because I've been sober over 10 years now. It'd be easy to forget that just having a drink is not a good idea for me. I also love helping other people. I love helping other people stay sober.
A Quiet Massage and the Trouble With Silence
I then went for a massage with a therapist that I had one with a couple of weeks ago. She did a silent massage. She talked during the beginning of the massage, some relaxing stuff, but otherwise it was quiet. I didn't hardly get to know her during that last massage. The therapist I went to just last week, by contrast, I had a great conversation with her, as well as a really deep massage. So I'm wondering if anything will be different this time, and I'm thinking I want to make sure to give this therapist a chance. And we have another quiet massage. It seems to be really effective. I feel very relaxed. At the same time, though, I feel just like a client, a transactable client. I really appreciate the human connection that's possible in a massage, going deeper conversationally too. I have a lot of time to relax and go within throughout my life.
After the end of the massage, I give her a couple hundred in cash, which works out to like a $35 tip or so. It's her business too, which is great, so she gets all of it, instead of getting scraped for like $100, the way it worked at the last studio I went to. She asked if I want to schedule another massage, and I'm like, no, I already have something scheduled with another provider. She tells me about some of what she offers, like the Ashiatsu foot massage where they walk on you, and a really gentle, nerve-tingly massage, in addition to the regular Swedish massage. I can tell she'd really like me to come back, and she kind of doesn't understand, or wishes that there wasn't a therapist I'd rather see than her. And I'm thinking, should I give her the feedback that a silent massage isn't as much my thing, that I'd rather not just lay there? I decide, nah, why bother? But maybe I could have given her some feedback, and I think maybe it would have been nice and helpful to say, hey, I would have preferred to talk. Now, she has a thing on her website that she doesn't initiate conversation during a massage, so maybe it was up to me. But I want to see the other therapist more, so I don't want to schedule another appointment with this therapist. I already was wishing I had scheduled with the other one from last week instead of scheduling with this one right away a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad my life's so good that these are the challenges or problems I have. Like, oh, which massage therapist am I going to see?
Errands, Baseboards, and the Cost of Doing It Myself
So I go to the library to donate some books that Laura wants to get rid of, and I got my library card updated, and I dropped some stuff off at the Salvation Army. I came back home, and I was really happy to see the kids home from school. Also, my friend from yoga came to start working on getting our new baseboards in. It's amazing how you can get used to living with things like no baseboards, and that's just normal. Well, why spend any money? We haven't had any baseboards since September, and it's February. So that's five or so months that we've been living without baseboards, which is the only time I've ever done that in a house.
I'm happy my friend from yoga is coming over. He brings the baseboards and gets to work on them. I told Laura I could do them myself, but they're not going to come out as well, and it's going to take a significant amount of time. My friend's quote looks like maybe 40 hours to do all the baseboards and stuff. In 40 hours, I could probably film 80 or 90 videos. So is it worth giving up 80 or 90 videos to do the baseboards myself? And I guarantee you, they look nicer when he does them. They're cut more precisely. So I'm glad he's starting the baseboards.
A Monopoly Game and a Little Abuse of Power
The kids ask if we can play Monopoly again, so we fire up another game. In this game, I feel like I'm subtly negotiating the trades a little bit in my favor. The other games, I felt like I was being pretty objective, but today I felt like there might have been a slight abuse of power, where I encouraged, not outright bad trades or anything, but, let me buy this from you before you get bankrupt so that the other person can't have it. We had fun playing the game though, even though I did get all the blues and greens again and cleaned both kids out. So I enjoyed the time.
Hip Hop Class and Putting the Devices Away
Then I went to hip hop. I take my son to this hip hop dance class, and I've been telling everybody that I wished I could have had some more time to talk to the parents there. There's two of the moms I've talked with before and had good conversations with. But the last few weeks, everybody's been on their laptops, iPads, phones. We just all sit there on our phones. So this week I went to grab my iPad and I put it down before I left the house, and we get there and I realize I left my iPad at home. Well, we're just going to go all in on this talking now. So I'm going to be super friendly as everybody walks in. And it worked out great. The two moms I'd talked with before were very friendly. One mom actually sat right next to me. There's maybe a row of 10 or 12 chairs, and sometimes they both sit way away from me and talk with each other, or sit away and get on their devices. The one mom sat right next to me today. There weren't a lot of open seats, but she sat next to me, and she forgot her laptop to do work on. The third mom capitulated and put her phone away, and we had a really nice conversation.
One mom bought a sauna, a four-person sauna, for like $7,000 and put it in her garage. She was talking about how great doing a sauna is for you. The other mom is building a pool at her house. I have nothing cool at my house, except maybe my filming studio. Some of you, if you came to my house, you'd probably really be like, oh, it's Jerry Banfield's filming studio. But it was great. I told them about a whole-plant-based diet, and we talked about a lot of stuff, especially health. We're all very interested in health and longevity and taking care of ourselves. I told them how I've been running a mile every day. To me, it's like I want to always be able to run a mile. I have no interest in living in this body if it can't run a mile every day. And the ideal way to do that is to run a mile every day. More than likely, I'll be able to run a mile every day for the rest of this body's existence.
A Cold Plunge of My Own
One of the things they're talking about is the sauna and then an ice bath or cold plunge. So I went for my one-mile run at night, then I took a cold shower afterwards. I never take long showers when they're cold showers. It's amazing how much faster you can go when the water's cold. But it's also cool how after a minute or two, it seems like the water warms up, but really your body adjusts to the coldness. The water doesn't warm up that much after the first minute or two; your body adjusts to the water being cold pretty quickly. And I think that's really healthy. Before the run, I came home from hip hop dance and dropped my daughter off with my mom across the street, then I dropped my son off there too, and went to do my one-mile run. Afterward, I went back to pick the kids up from my mom's house and spent like 30 minutes hanging out with my mom and the kids.
The Conversation About Words
Then I take the kids back, and at my mom's house they started talking about swearing and cursing, and they went nuts swearing when they got home. I'm okay with them swearing. I'd rather hear what kind of words they're using, and I'd rather them be able to express themselves that way if they want to around me. Laura prefers that they don't do that. But last night they went to a whole new level. They're saying the B word. Then Madeline, who's in fourth grade, tells Jack about the F word. I had never heard her say the F word before. So then Jack's calling the dog an F and a B, and they're screaming the F word and cursing each other out at a level I've never heard before.
Then Madeline asked me, Dad, what's the N word? Well, I guess this is the time to explain that, isn't it? We go back to the country named Nigeria, and how back then, if you were from Nigeria, you would say you were a Niger, the same way that if you're from the USA, you'd say you're an American. And eventually that's how that word started. So I had that whole conversation, although I drew the line with my son, who wanted to know too. My daughter asked while he was in the shower, and I'm like, let me talk to your mom about this. You're in first grade, I don't know. In fourth grade, my daughter understands discretion and watching her mouth based on who she's around. But my wife said it's fine, we can tell him about all the words and explain to him that some of these words you could get in a fight using with kids at school, or you could get kicked out of school for using. So you need to be careful about what you say and around whom.
A Hard Evening, and a Mature Relationship
Then Laura gets home from her Pilates class. Her friend who was supposed to meet her at the gym stood her up again. She went to Pilates and stopped at Chick-fil-A afterwards, which was two days in a row of fast food. Then I told her about the kids swearing, and all of it together kind of got her at a low point. She felt bad for getting the fast food. She felt hurt that her friend stood her up at the last minute again. And it was a loss of innocence hearing the kids screaming the F word at each other. On a related note, I uploaded a video today where I'm MFing this and that on my gaming channel, so I'm excited for that to publish in a couple of days. Laura and I had a really nice conversation. I'm grateful I could appreciate how she was feeling and get through that without having a fight or anything. I'm really grateful for how mature our relationship is today, and you can follow more days like this one over on my Life playlist.