This is my journal entry from January 11, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I absolutely loved waking up with the kids here this morning. It was such a nice morning. We all woke up and got up a little after 7. Everything went just perfectly last night. I went to bed with the kids. I got lots of time to relax, meditate, sleep. So much rest. It was so good. We all laughed and were happy to be here. And I'm like, man, this is what I've been missing in my life. Man, I missed my kids so much and having these times overnight with them. God, it felt good. And that was one reason I was getting desperate in my dating. It's like the kids took up a huge space in my life that for three months I had a lot less of it. And it was so nice to have them here. I felt so loved and cried myself to sleep. It was so good.
We got up this morning, and they wanted to go straight to the park. I made them each a burrito and gave my daughter strawberries and my son cantaloupe. They were so excited to go straight to the park. We took the car and the drone and my son's plane-launching gun, and we did all of it. We flew the drone, drove the car around, launched the planes. Then we went into the park and did the swings. We had the most fun on the big, huge double swing. When I got on it with my son, my son went so high in the air because whoever's smaller goes higher. And same thing. He went really high with my daughter and him on it with me pushing them. We had such a great time. It was funny to notice how at the top of the peak, I could feel like my stomach was going up and feeling weird a bit. My son was on it for so long because he went with me and with my daughter. We played with some kids at the park.
There was a mom there who didn't have a wedding ring on who was attractive. I said hi to her. Like, wouldn't it be cool if I ran into a single mom that was beautiful and wanted more kids just right at Crescent Lake Park? That would be awesome, wouldn't it? I hope that happens. And I guess as much as I'm showing up, it might. We got back at 9:30. And what's been really cool is the kids. I was hardly ever going to the park with them for years. I used to when they were little, like babies, and up until my son started preschool, I used to go to the park with him a lot especially. And I hadn't been in the park much with them lately. It's been awesome with them back at the park again. There were some teenagers this morning, and my daughter was a bit put off by them, but they left.
We got back at 9:30 and met my ex-wife here. She brought the dog, and she was really happy to see us and that we all had such a good night together. And she mentioned a comment about her sister in the book, which I ended up recording yesterday's journal entry right after that, so I was freshly hot again from it. I brought it up, of course, but then she confirmed that that's what she heard. And I'm like, yeah, is it a good look for me that I said some really ugly things about her sister five times yesterday? Probably not. That said, technically, it was this morning when I recorded this. So not like a lot of time has passed. But, you know, I think it's ideal in a world if we're just honest, because, yeah, sometimes people do things that hurt our feelings. And can we just stop lying about that? Can we stop acting like we're not destroying people in our heads? Can we just be honest about our experience and not, you know, try and act like everything is all positive and all good all the time. If you're done pretending you're all good and want to just be honest alongside people who get it, I'd love for you to come be real with us in the Jerry Banfield Family.
I was thinking today in the shower, like one thing that's really important for being powerful is to be able to use the positive, the negative, the dark and the light. It's silly when you have things like Star Wars framing the light side of the force and the dark side of the force and having this arbitrary division. Like to me, to be most powerful, you use both. Like if I can hit the tennis ball and make it do some evil shit and win the point, I'm down with that. And we don't want to dichotomize ourselves into I'm just this good person. Because every good person has certain qualities that make them an asshole. And every bad person has some redeeming qualities.
I was listening to this book about the Cleveland kidnapper. A couple of books. One written by, I get all their names confused, who wrote what. Obviously, that guy's hard to even comprehend, how you could kidnap three different girls and have everybody living in abject poverty and be bringing them fast food to eat. That's hard to comprehend the level of disgusting. At the same time, though, this guy has some character virtues. Like a lot of people are so scared to even ask a girl out or ask their boss for a raise or quit a shitty job. And this guy kidnapped three girls and held them there for a decade. And he was trying to pick up women at the bar and asking them out and stuff. Even with three at home, I'm like, bro, you've got three women at home that you kidnapped. Do you really need another one right now? Like, this is so predictable, actually. I was trying to think of where I could do a stand-up comedy set with some jokes like that. And I guess these books are the place. Well, you've got three women you can have at home. How are you trying to pick up a girl at the bar now, for fuck's sake?
But yes, I certainly see how that guy's a monster, and he died in prison. At the same time, this guy did have character virtues. You know, you can't look at him and say every single part of him is bad. Like he'd show up and have dinner with his mother and then bring his mom's leftovers home and feed it to the women in his house. So it's really nice to not just think in terms of people are good or bad, black or white. You know, like I look white, but I'm a little black on the inside. And it's really nice to not think of people as just good or bad, and not to think of myself that way, to think, you know what? In certain ways, I'm a fucking asshole. I'm the kind of asshole that'd call his former sister-in-law something vicious five times over a comment about these books, which I thought ironically kind of, you know, when you hear how I react, it certainly makes sense that you would say to just throw this shit away, right?
But at the same time, some people think this is amazing. Like how stand-up comedians, some people think Bill Burr and Louis C.K. or, you know, Jim Jefferies are just these monsters. Dave Chappelle. I fucking love those guys. They're funny as shit. They put a lot of work into their craft and being funny as shit. And I appreciate them. And they use a lot of foul language and dark examples and piss people off with their comedy. But I love it. It's funny as hell. Dave Chappelle's The Closer was incredible. Like that pedophile priest joke he made killed me. I did not see that one coming. I'm like, holy shit. The trans stuff, I didn't even think about that. I'm proud of who I am today. That's what matters. It's okay if people think I'm an asshole and you should just throw my books away. That's a valid way of looking at my art. Same as if I painted. Some people think my art was a masterpiece and Mona Lisa's a shitty painting. Like some simple woman from way back in Italy. There's nothing special here. Don't tell me it's great because it's in a fucking museum. It's a painting of a simple woman from way back when in Italy. Like, all right, not really inspiring me here. So that's where we're at today.
After my ex-wife took the dogs to the dog park and then said goodbye here, I went to my yoga studio. And right before I get there, I put all the laundry in, like the kids' stuff, the yoga towels. And in the last washer I had, that was like $600. It was a, you know, front loader. You could just throw all that shit in there and then wash it. Sometimes the little kids' sleeves would get tangled up with shit. Not in this motherfucker. This is an old school top loader with an agitator in the middle. Shit was wrapped up there. It took me like 10 minutes to untangle the shit. And then there's my old Michelangelo Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles towel from my childhood that I used to go to the beach with 30 years ago. That towel was stuck underneath the agitator. I finally realized I had to unwrap it around it to pull it out after yanking and nearly ripping the towel. I'm like, let's not use any more Superman ceramic shattering strength today. I'm thinking like, you know what? I'll drop $1,200 and buy a new washer and dryer up in this bitch. For real. But let me try and make the most out of these. Then the clothes came out so soaked that I threw them in the dryer instead of just using the spin cycle. And yeah, it's 10:24 p.m. Those clothes have been drying off and on all day. Still not dry. We're getting close, though. Shit.
My yoga studio was nice, but I did not succeed in making a connection with any girl today, which is fine because I got a good workout and I got a good sweat and I enjoyed the show. This girl that was hot as fuck put her mat right next to this other guy who was there with what looked like his girlfriend. I'm like, that's nice, isn't it? I need to put my mat next to the hottest girl I can next time because I've been being too conservative in regards to that. But I want to put my mat next to the hot single women who want the attention. Then I came home from yoga, had a nice salad, filled myself up.
Then I got to work organizing this house and working on my letter. I got some great feedback, some more feedback in my letter. My sister messaged me. We didn't get to have a call today. I went to work organizing the house, which felt great. One of my boys from AA called me. We talked for an hour and a half on the phone. It was actually awesome. Again, something I would not have normally done back in my happily married life, because I wouldn't have time for that. And back when I was doing videos, especially, when I had time for that, but it was so cool. I had time to talk to him for an hour and a half and he drilled in about my events. He's like, what is going to be the point of your events? Who are these events for? What are you going to do at them? It was so great. And we talked about girls a lot and stuff too. I saw him at the meeting tonight and we went in on more of the girls and stuff. And we laughed a lot, you know, just lots of laughing. This guy's like in his early twenties. It's just so good to talk to him. Nice to have made a friend at AA.
After wrapping up everything around the house, I then went to the AA meeting. I ended up getting there a minute after it started because I was wrapping the letter up. I ran the entire letter back through ChatGPT using some of the feedback people gave me. I cut half the words in the letter, but it's still eight pages because it's more spaced out now. I might see if I can make it less spaced out so it wouldn't take as many pages to print on. Like if maybe I could get it down from like eight pages to six, that would save a significant amount in printing costs. And at the same time, though, it seems like the more spread out paragraphs can be a bit easier to read. You know, longer, denser paragraphs can be a bit intimidating. But these paragraphs kind of break it up and leave you, you know, feeling like it's easier to digest.
And some people, most people said I should shorten my letter, but I don't see how somebody's going to want to pay $20 to come to my house and really get my message with a shortened letter. My one friend actually was kind enough to shorten my entire letter for me to two pages. And I felt like she wanted to make the letter more businesslike. And I'm like, this letter is dead. Like this takes out all the substance and the emotions of the original letter I read, which is what people teach you to do with business. If I'm going to get somebody to come pay $20 to come to my house or do coaching with me, I'm going to need an emotional reaction, even if it's a negative one, like my former sister-in-law.
After the meeting, I stayed and talked to the boys for an hour and a half afterwards, which was great. Didn't talk to any girls, but I am looking forward to all the girls I'm going to talk to and whoever the next woman is that I'm going to connect with and really enjoy and have a great time with. At the same time, though, having the kids over, and I'm going to have them tomorrow and Tuesday, too, for overnights, it really makes it obvious, like, how much time do I actually have for a hardcore girlfriend right now? And would I have to give up some time with the kids to have a hardcore girlfriend? Because, you know, that could change things. If you're weighing how to make room for a relationship without losing the time that matters most, I'd be glad to talk it through with you on a private Zoom call.
I didn't hear from any of the women I messaged yesterday. None of them. You know, I messaged a woman I'd been dating about breaking up. She didn't answer. I messaged a girl from yoga I met. Messaged a girl from AA. Not one fucking reply. That was cold-blooded. But you know what? I'm still standing strong, and I'll keep going until the day I die. The guy I was talking to at AA and talking about girls, he's like, yeah, it's just hard. I don't want to get rejected. I showed him my phone. I'm like, look at my fucking text messages. All right, here's a message from a girl I asked to date. She said no. Like, top message on my phone. Scroll down. Here's a message from my ex-wife who just divorced me. Here's a message from my massage therapist who, I think it was in the book nine hours later, I talked about asking her if she wanted to date me. Scroll down a couple more. Here's a girl from AA who likes me and waves and is enthusiastic. Didn't respond to my message. Here, next one. Girl from yoga. Didn't respond. Massage therapist. Didn't respond. A woman I'd been talking to. You know, didn't respond to my voicemail memo. A woman I had been seeing, you know, I sent a cold last message to her, but you know, she could have responded if she wanted to with any warmth or something, not expecting that she necessarily should. But it's like, look at all that rejection. Like my messages are just getting destroyed with rejection. So don't worry about rejection.
A friend gave me some really nice feedback on the letter, which I appreciated. I sent her $88.88 on Zelle as a thank you for reading my letter. And I think that's about it because the one I recorded earlier was like 35 minutes. So I definitely don't want to go over 20 minutes on average because I have to edit all these. And I'm like at least a month behind on editing them. So it's time to wrap up.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.