This is my journal entry from January 9, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I had a nice night of sleep in my new house, my palace as I think of it. There was a tiny slit in one of the window blackout spots though that let in light like right above the right side of the wall near where my face is looking. So tonight I duct taped that shit up. But I slept great. I'm super grateful for this new place. I got up and was there even a little earlier than usual to take the kids to school, which worked out nice. Then I went straight to a yoga studio after dropping them off. I got there, put my mat down, and a girl put her mat down next to me. This was a power flow and heated, and damn, this was intense. It was a good sweat, but I was feeling really strong this morning.
The girl next to me was looking very strong too, but she didn't have a towel. She was trying to use her tank top to wipe all her sweat up. So I commented on that after class. She looked really happy I was talking to her. At the same time, I wonder, why don't girls start conversations with me more? I almost always start the conversations. Is that just being a guy? Do they just sit there and look cute and hope that somebody's going to start talking to them? Because that doesn't seem like a very good strategy to get what you want in life, but maybe some people call that attraction rather than promotion. I talked to her. I can't remember exactly how to say her name, but she left me thinking I'd like to bring an extra yoga towel to class and then I could just give somebody else an extra towel because doing one of those hot, sweaty classes without a towel can really suck sometimes. I want to be the kind of person that has an extra towel for somebody. Becoming the kind of person who always has an extra towel for somebody is the whole spirit of what I'm building, so if that's you too, come join the Jerry Banfield Family.
I finished up yoga. I was feeling really euphoric and full of gratitude and thank you this and thank you that. I got home and I'm like, I want to dictate the thank you letter right now. So I had a little hummus and then I dictated for an hour straight a thank you letter that came out to be 10 pages or 11 pages, single spaced, narrow margins, which is perfect for one of the... thank you letters I want to hand out. I then sent it to seven people to proofread, one of whom was a woman I'd been talking to, along with my sister, my massage therapist, two friends from my recovery group who didn't respond, and a friend. She said she was looking for work. I said I'd pay her to review the letter, and she said she is... very blunt and encouraging feedback coming my way. And then I sent it to her and she didn't respond. So I don't know what that's about.
But then after I texted the woman I'd been talking to, she said, will you be around the Crescent Lake Park later? She's not sure of the timing yet, but thinking around five. So I said, I should be home around five and can walk over from my house when you're available. So I sent that at like one or so, one or maybe one thirty-two.
So then I finish up the letter, send it out for feedback, and then I go, I have a salad and I go to pick the kids up. I drop the kids off at my ex-wife's house and hang out for like 20 minutes. Then I head over to my last house to get all the rest of the stuff out of it. All right, so check this out. So this is the funniest part of the day because I know you're thinking, all right, fuck, this is boring. What was fun about today?
So I go to take a shit. I sit down and I blast the first load of shit out. But there's more and I do a courtesy flush. Then I notice it's not flushing quite right. I'm blowing the second round of shit out now. Not like diarrhea shit, but just regular healthy whole plant shit. Lots of material, but not all stuck together. You know what I'm saying? Then I remember that I called St. Pete and told them to turn the water off on the 9th, which it looks like they did. I'm like, you ought to be fucking shitting me. I just shit this toilet out and there's no water. Fuck. I got no soap either to wash my hands. I'm like, well, good thing I don't believe in germ theory. And there's no water to rinse. I text my neighbor.
I told her I was cleaning out the rest of the stuff from the house. I'm like, hey, I forgot to turn the water off. Can I use your garden hose? And she says yes. So first thing I can think of is my water bottle. And the water bottle is, you know, like a couple of pints, maybe a quart or so, which that's not going to work very well to fill up a two gallon toilet tank with eight loads out of a garden hose. But then I look in the garage and I find one of those big square brown buckets. And I take the hose and I start filling it up. And I use the brown bucket filling it up to flush the toilet, which feels really satisfying. All this feels silly too, since they're knocking the house down in the first place. But I'm not leaving like my last impression somewhere is this shit-out toilet. Like I'm not doing that. That's horrible. Let me get the rest of the house cleaned up.
And then I head over to a grocery store to pick my package up. I tried having Amazon deliver this thing to the grocery store because it saved $3 on shipping, so I figured, let me just try this, even though the time and effort doesn't seem worth it. But I'm like, just try something different, see how it feels. I get there, and an hour before, Amazon had tried to deliver the item there, but they said the store didn't have any secure place to store it. I'm like... no shit, Sherlock. Like, there's no lockers at this store. Like, who fucked up on Amazon to get this as an option? What was I supposed to do? Be waiting at a goddamn counter to receive the package like this? And I can't even, like, cancel it or return it at this point because they've got it. So I'm like, this is just dumb right now. So I just ordered another one. I just got a liner for my son's bed in case, you know, it gets pissed in, and I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna just order another one. And this time, I'm gonna pay the extra $3 in shipping to get it overnight to my fucking house, alright? How you like that, huh?
Then I go over to the UPS store, and the same woman is there that notarized with my ex-wife and me several times. Last time I was there, we were signing the marriage settlement agreement, and I told her this was definitely the last one. Now it's like three weeks later and I'm like, OK, this is definitely the last one. I got my quit claim deed notarized. It's amazing. I just signed this little document and I surrender my claim to the house. Pretty straightforward, isn't it? My ex-wife has a mortgage on it already, so there's nothing to do with that. All I have to do is take myself off the deed and it's her house. After I get that notarized.
I told my ex-wife that I didn't think I was going to make my son's soccer, but I call my sponsor and I'm talking to him on the phone. I get back to my house and there's a message from the woman I'd been talking to saying that, oh gosh, Jerry, I was there much longer than I expected. Now I don't have time to run down that far. I was going to talk to you about your proposal to read your letter. I had sent her a proposal. She said she needed money and the situation was desperate. So I said, I'll pay you to read through this letter and give me feedback on it. So I just fucking ghosted because I'm a nice person. I'm like, fuck this. I'm done with this. Enough of this. And then I reflected on my character defects as I was changing a laundry. I'm like, you know, I got a low, low threshold for bullshit. I'm just no, I'm not putting up with this. You know what? No, enough.
She wasn't interested in anything more after I paid for a $100 dinner, even though she says she's been single for two years, and she likes me. But no, why would we get closer? I didn't text her for three days, and then she messaged me. I'm just like, you know what? I'm not saying hell yes to this, so it's a no. Enough. I'm going to leave this woman alone. I appreciate the validation, and I say thank you for the experiences I had with her so far.
But this is a good reminder, and this letter I wrote today really gets into that I really want to have kids, more kids. And she's not going to be having kids, so what am I doing with her? My time is valuable, and I've spent enough time with her and enough money on her at this point. You know, and that kind of flakiness is like, if you're going to act that way right now, you know, then I don't want to keep dealing with that.
Sometimes you got a very limited window to do it right with people. And if you fuck it up, it's over. You're never going to get that back. In my view, she slash we kind of blew it on the second night we went out. So it's like, you know what? Nah, I'll find somebody else. The women aren't that scarce. And I really want a woman 30 years younger. So there's no point in taking my time up and being distracted with that.
So after I saw the woman I'd been talking to wasn't available and I decided the simplest thing to do is just not respond, whatever, enough. Then I told my ex-wife I could go to soccer, and I realized I forgot my shower head in the bathroom of the old house, so I went and grabbed it since it's on the way to soccer anyway, and then I met my ex-wife for soccer. Had a nice time sitting there with her watching my son. I killed 12 mosquitoes that were trying to bite me. And it was funny, I thought, you know, yes, it'd be more exciting, but I was thinking, like, I'd rather hang out with my ex-wife and my son at soccer than go to Crescent Lake Park with the woman I'd been talking to, which, you know, the first two times I saw her, I was really excited to see her, but I don't know, the last time was just disappointing, and I lost it, I get excited really easy, but I lose my excitement really easy, too, and if it doesn't come back, I guess it's not meant to be.
But then I'm thinking, am I supposed to be pursuing all these girls? Like, I got this girl's phone number at yoga a couple weeks ago. She was very pretty. And, you know, am I supposed to be continuing to text her? Like, do I have to just constantly always be texting girls and, you know, trying to push stuff? Like, I got her number on the 28th. I texted her, said it was nice to meet her. I sent her my book on Amazon. She didn't respond. Like, so should I text her again? You know, I texted a girl from AA to meet up that same day. She said, oh, it's super busy at work. You know, what should I do? Should I just keep sending fucking messages that people aren't interested in? I don't believe in that. You know, is it too much to ask for a mutual interest? I don't think so.
Like, would everybody have a good relationship with? There's mutual interest. Go smear. Leave my message not responded to. So I got to assume if a girl doesn't respond back, I don't mean shit to her. And I don't think it's right that I should keep just pestering a girl. Now, some girls like persistence. But at the same time, my ex-wife didn't require persistence. She didn't ignore several of my text messages asking if I wanted to do something. She fucking responded to every message I sent and every phone call I made.
So I'm not dealing. If a girl doesn't respond, that must mean she has so little interest. Absolutely not thinking about me at all. No, thanks. I'm going to clear you from my mind. And, you know, if I'm not responding to the woman I'd been talking to, it's I'm not interested anymore. I'm good. You know, you fucked up with me at this point. I'm good. You know, you're trying to get a man that's 16 years younger. That's got his own house, that has, you know, close to 20 grand in cash in a bank. Big credit lines, big ambitions and ideas, ultra healthy. Yeah, you got to play that right. You got to really want it.
After soccer, then I came back and made myself some popcorn at my house. Then I went to an AA meeting tonight. I guess I'm not supposed to say which groups I go to. Went to an 8 p.m. meeting with like 100 people there. I prefer smaller meetings generally. And I didn't get called on tonight, which feels like I've wasted my fucking time in this meeting. I remember thinking, I'm like, am I dead right now? Is this heaven or hell that I'm seeing this AA meeting? People are just babbling on about useless, self-congratulatory stuff for the most part. Like, most people are just like fucking bots in these big meetings, just saying the same recycled lines. You know, I'm like, such a fucking boring waste of my time.
Like I appreciate what people are trying to do there, but it's just a lot of people don't share much real shit in these big meetings because, you know, they're too afraid of getting judged. And I think I'm selling myself on not going to that meeting again. I went there to see, you know, people I know, specifically one guy who texted me, and this guy actually read my letter and gave me feedback. He said, you know, you lost me about two pages in. You need to either shorten it. Or I realized I need to put something up front to sell people on the content of the letter and to sell people on actually reading the letter. I'm so grateful he actually gave me feedback and I talked with him afterward, which was great. Real, honest connection like that is exactly what I want more of, and I'd love for you to help build it with us in the Jerry Banfield Family.
There's all these girls at that meeting too, but they do this weird shit of like sticking ultra close to each other. And most of them not hardly talking to guys. And that's fucking stupid too, which, you know, it's just weird. So I think we'll be doing a different meeting. But I'm glad I've tried, and I think I'm going to be having my house events Friday and Saturday nights, so I won't be able to go to those late meetings anymore anyway.
I came home, and I looked over at the Crescent Lake Park, and I'm like, you know what? It's my second night here. I want to use this. I want to start getting in the habit of really enjoying this park. Like, my house is in a perfect location to really enjoy this park. So I took a little walk around the park. No headphones, no music or anything, no audio books or calls. Just try and center myself. Think clearly. And in thinking clearly, I thought, you know, I definitely want to do those events. I really want events at my house Friday and Saturday night. You know, the effect people are going for at those AA meetings, but something open for everyone, a place for all the people in my life that are all about me together.
A place where we can have Jerry's cult in this bitch, all right? Where I'm going to fucking share and lead every night. Where I won't get skipped and not called on. How about that? Call it deeper connections. I was feeling kind of down after I got really euphoric and high and dictated that thank you letter. I kind of crashed and felt really down after that. It's like, whatever. Why even try giving these letters? Why even bother trying to have an event? But I remember like my books made an impact on people and I didn't think much about the impact they'd make. I just said whatever I wanted to say and gave the books out. But what if I actually thought carefully about the impact I wanted to make and then gave it out from there? Maybe we could sell tickets to an event at my house. Maybe I could sell more books and people pay for coaching. Maybe it'd all work out and it'd be awesome. If you're trying to build something of your own and keep riding the highs and crashes, I'd be glad to think it through with you on a private Zoom call.
So taking a walk around Crescent Lake left me feeling really grounded. Like, you know what? Definitely do the events. And only hand the letters out to people. Don't drop them at doorsteps. Make sure people see my face and I hand them out personally. And just all I need to do is figure out where can I hand letters out in person and then print those letters, dictate those letters, and pass those letters out. Simple. And from there, be ready for inbound marketing.
After my walk, I got back. I looked around for like 20 minutes for a pack of matches to light the candle that's on the table next to me while I'm dictating this. I rearranged a little more of the house and said a lot of thank you. Thank you for this palace. Like, this house is so big. It's amazing. 1,400 square feet. Nice big kitchen. A storage, like, walk-in, like, storage closet. Huge living room. I think we could get at least 24 people in this living room since it has no couch, no dining room table. I think we could get like 20 of us, maybe 24, 25 of us in here, especially if we snuggled up or had people, some people on mats or on the ground and some people behind them in chairs. Yeah. So I'm really grateful for my life, really excited for my life. I duct taped the windows. Looking forward to trying that out tonight. Yeah.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.