This is my journal entry from January 1, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I slept in today. It was really nice. I didn't even get out of bed till like nine. So I'm like, shit, I literally have nothing on the calendar today. And it's cold as a bitch in here. The heat went all the way. I put it on 64 because that's what I felt like putting it on. And it actually got down there and was running last night. I was like, wow. This is cold as shit in this bitch. Did what I could to warm up a little bit. And then I started to try and figure what I'm going to do with my day. Step one, let's take a look at a yoga class. I've had so many people tell me about a new yoga studio today. My usual yoga studio doesn't have shit going on, and today's the day to try the new one. I go and donate $15 for a class there, and I commit to doing their noon class. I like how many classes they have, and I got to try it, especially since my usual studio, both locations are full wait-listed today.
I think this is the perfect time to work on my book. This morning, after I get up and have a couple of Larabars for breakfast, then I jump into my book, which tentatively is called How I Finally Got Healthy, but we might need to change the title of that. I dictate the chapter that I'm calling Caterpillar today, which is right before I get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, so 2011 to 2014. It takes an hour of dictation, and the book's up to like 40-some-thousand words already off of the transcript, so I guess this is going to be a big one, which is fine, because this is a memoir of my whole life, basically, before I started doing the Daily Autobiography. Maybe I'll put that on as a prequel to the Daily Autobiography series or something.
After doing that, I head over to the new yoga studio. My attitude's in the shitter for some reason, too. I'm feeling like it's New Year's. Maybe I'm kind of missing my old life. It's a new year. It's like, whatever. I go to the studio. The girl checking me in is so attractive I can barely talk to her. She says she's a yoga instructor. She's got these pink pants on. And she's checking me in. I'm like, Jesus Christ, she's gorgeous. But I am giving her nothing but, like, sad face. I'm like, whatever. Thanks. Where can I put my shit? So I get my mat, and I look around. I'm like, how the fuck are there so many people here, and I don't know any of them? I look around. Nobody I know. I go to the bathroom. I got there early because I had to park two blocks away, which is normal. They said their parking lot is small. Holy shit, was that an understatement? There's like eight parking spots. And this studio looks like it can handle like maybe 60, 80, 90 people in it. Yeah, if you could just come in Saturday, that'd be great. Fuck. So I put my mat all the way in the front right corner of the class, right next to the big ass garage that this warehouse used to have on it, which is nice because it's a heated class, but the air is seeping in through this garage and there's not a heater overhead. So this is kind of like a lukewarm yoga, which I'm fine with because the teacher's got it set, I think, at like 92. And it's good I can't look at her very easily, like, wow. That girl next to me, it looks like she came with a guy. So I've got a really neutral kind of boring environment to do yoga in, so I can really just focus on my own practice, which leaves me sounding kind of like a silly boy. Silly boy. Like, okay, fine, whatever. I'll just do my own fucking practice here instead of checking girls out. But next time, I think I'm going to put my mat in the middle of the room. I'm appreciating the recommendation so far because there are a shitload of attractive women here. Very few wedding rings. Hardly any except this girl next to me came with a guy. I'm like, good God. There are a lot more attractive women here compared to my old yoga studio. So, you know, your boy will be getting an $88 a month membership and coming back soon. It's donation-based yoga too. Are some people like cheap and walk in and just give like $5 or some shit? I mean, I guess I gave $15 because I'm not a cheap fuck. So I go to finish the class up. I'm looking around. I'm like, I wonder if my second wife's in this class or not. Maybe there won't be a second wife, but I can look, right?
I walk out, and there's a couple of pretty girls walking in front of me, but I'm not starting shit today, fuck it. If someone didn't walk right up to me and make it obvious, I'm not even trying. I'm tired of this shit. I've got a lot to offer, and I just got out of a 15-year relationship. Is there any sense of urgency that I need to get some other woman over here and fuck up my vibe? I mean, no, there's no urgency, but yes. Some real intimacy would be nice. Haven't had that in a while. Really seems crazy how back when I was a married author in St. Petersburg I was complaining about how every other day didn't seem like enough. You're a dummy, bitch. Well, well, well. All right. We get home.
And I'll be honest about where my head's at coming out of this marriage. I spent a lot of my life, going all the way back to being a teenager in algebra class, feeling ashamed of my own body and my own desire and telling it to knock it off. These days I'm trying to do the opposite, make peace with being a man, feel alive in my own skin again, and stop beating myself up about being attracted to people. I'm a grown man fresh out of a 15-year marriage, and learning not to carry shame around that feels like part of getting healthy.
So I get home. I finished listening to Tucker Max's Hilarity Ensues book. Man, I love this shit. It's so funny and I love laughing. I think laughing is so important. And I just love the guy, even though I seem to be swearing a lot more, I'm laughing so much. And I just feel like my life is going so much better because I'm laughing. I remember in college, we did a bunch of dumb shit, but we laughed a lot too. And it's really important to be able to laugh sober. So that's a non-negotiable in these books is that there's laughing, that we talk shit and get crazy. After I have my big ass salad,
Then my ex-wife walks the kids down here at 2.30, and I've got a plan for the kids. I'm like, all right, I got 150 books in my car ready, stuffed with notes from my neighbors. I'll give you all $20 an hour each. I'll drive down the middle of the block. You guys go put these books on people's doorstep. They're down. They're excited. So we drive to my new neighborhood in Crescent Lake, and these kids rip through the books. They both take three at a time first, and then my son starts taking five or six at a time. My son is, I love him, man. He's just sprinting from house to house, throwing books down on their steps. I love it. My daughter gets a little nervous and shy going up to some of the houses on her side, but we end up doing three blocks. We go down, maybe I guess technically it'd be like five, six blocks we did, and I'm driving the car in the middle of the road, which is barely enough for two cars to get by. I have to pull over sometimes because the car's parked on the side of the road, but these kids hand out two boxes of books. I'm so proud of them and thankful because it was just fun to watch them, and it went super fast. They did it at least two, if not three times faster than I could have done it myself, and it was fun to watch them have fun. If you'd like to be part of building something real like this, come join the Jerry Banfield Family and grow with us.
Then my daughter says we should go try giving books out at Crescent Lake Park because there's people all over. I was about to say it's Sunday, but it's fucking Thursday. I don't know what I've been thinking, but it's Sunday in this bitch. So we go walking over to Crescent Lake armed with like 20 plus books among the three of us. And I tell them to fan out. Y'all go get the playground. I'm going to go over here and get these people on a blanket. So I just start walking up to everybody. There's like this guy and a girl having some intimate conversation on a blanket. I just bust in. I'm like, here's a fucking book. Not really. But I'm like, hey, I'm a local author. I wrote a book I think you'll enjoy. Can I give you a copy? And I give them a copy. And then I walk off. I'm just giving, passing everybody copies. Most people say yes, but a couple say no. And that's good because these books cost $4 each to print. I'd rather get a few no's than give them to people or throw them on doorsteps that don't want them.
Then the kids come up to me, and my daughter's like, this is hard. I've only given away one book. People are mostly telling me no. And my son gave away a few more. But I'm like, all right, watch me work, guys. So the kids watch me go up to a few people, and most of them take a book. And I'm like, yeah, this is how you hustle, kids. Like, get up there, sell them on the book, real quick, confident, come on. My daughter's like, but I'm nervous. I'm like, I'm nervous too. I'll just fucking do it anyway, even though I'm nervous. Then I go on the playground. We got the whole playground rigged up with books. There's like four or five parents holding books. This one guy whips $10 out of his pocket. I'm like, goddamn, this motherfucker comes to the park with $10 just loose in his pocket. I'm like, this is my kind of dad right here. He was listening to some sports thing on his phone and whips it out and gives me a $10 bill for the books. I'm like, thank you. I can buy two more of these books to give away with that $10. Really appreciate it. And we have a little conversation. I tell the parents, too. I'm like, hey, this is a book talking about how I got my kids to get off screens and internet addiction and influencers and all that shit. So it felt really good. I actually ran into a girl I knew from a yoga studio there, not the woman who complained about me. I've almost said her name in here. It's probably going to get name dropped at some point. But this was one of the girls that was nice and had a nice talk with her at yoga. She was out with what I think was her man. And I give it to a gay guy and his partner, too, and then another couple. And then we've given away at least 10, maybe 15 books. And I'm like, y'all ready to go? They want to do some more door drops, but I only have one more box of these books left.
and it takes like a month to get more books. I'm like, let me just keep the rest of these. I'll go do these myself at the pier or public parks or coffee pot, shit like that, coffee pot park. I'll go give the rest of these books out myself, and I'll give you guys $40 each. Instead of $20 an hour, I'll give you a bonus $40. You guys made this so much fun, and what my kids showed me is a really great way I can distribute my books is to just go where people are, bring stack armfuls of books and just hand them out where people are already walking around and standing around. And that way I can at least get people to consent to taking my book instead of throwing it on their doorstep. So this was so much fun with the kids.
They're messing with each other in the back seat by the time I get home. My son's messing with my daughter's belly and she's using her foot to try and push him away and kick him gently. Meanwhile, they brought the dog down. We put her in the bathroom so she didn't chew anything. We're only gone an hour. I kind of wish we couldn't have taken her really for the book giveaways. I could take her to the dog park. We could have taken her to the dog park and give books away at the dog park or some shit. I'm really excited now. I got a plan to give my books away that feels organic, too, where magical things can happen, where I might run into somebody really cool or where people have met me and seen me face-to-face before they read my book, which I think makes a big difference. So I got a marketing plan going forward. We give books to people, find places to give books out, person-in-person, just cold approach people. Hey, can I give you this book? Hey, can I give you this book? Perfect. If you want to put your own work into the world with people cheering you on, come build it with us in the Jerry Banfield Family.
Get home with the kids and we play the Harry Potter deck-building game where it's like Battle for Hogwarts or some shit. At first, they want to play game seven. So this is seven different deck-building games in one. They get progressively more difficult with characters and items and spells from the movies. We think about game seven, but game seven has significant difficulty, and game six is hard enough. You've got to really play it right, or you lose pretty easily. So I'm like, why don't we just take game six, play a little more lighthearted practice? Because once we go to game seven, that's as hard as the game gets. Then it's all downhill from there, basically. So we play game six, and I play Hermione, which she has the worst, dumbest-ass ability, where if you play four spells in a turn, I just realized now you probably should pair that with a card drawing. If you pair that with card drawing, it could work pretty good, but I didn't think of that. I put it with a spell for a coin and another coin. My whole strategy fucking sucked. I was a dead weight on the team, but my daughter, my son, and I all had fun. And we'd beat them by them. I mean, like Voldemort and his Death Eaters. We'd beat them the last couple of times, but they beat us this time. They just dumped on us and filled the location up. But we had fun, and I walked them back home to my ex-wife's house after making some popcorn. And we had so much laughter, and we all had a great time. It was so nice. I got the drone and the new monster truck coming in the mail Saturday, which they're excited about. Super grateful for all this today.
After walking them back home, I went straight to my AA meeting to meet a guy who's, he's not my sponsor, but he's kind of like my sponsor. And there were several other people I knew there, lots of other people I knew, which was great. Had a good talk with them. They're trying to tell me that I should put, I put $20 at once in the basket. And then the basket will pass me like 10, 15 times and I won't put anything in it. And then I'll drop another 20 in next time. I've put as much as $100 at once in a basket because I don't like carrying ones, fives, and tens. And this one dude who originally asked me, I think I captured this in a diary book back in the day. He originally asked me, you know, why I wasn't putting money in the basket. And I explained this to him and he said, oh, okay, that was fine at the time. But then this other guy that I came there to see, they both get on me about not putting money in the basket. And because it's like, yeah, it looks bad if you don't put money in the basket. But like, I don't give a fuck if it looks bad or not. I disengaged and moved on from that conversation as soon as I could. I don't give a fuck how it looks about the money I'm putting in the basket. If somebody's not going to fucking ask me why I'm not putting money in the basket like this guy did, or this other guy told me, you know, he sees me giving these homeless people $20, which they were doing the same shit back in the day in AA. One of the founders was talking about giving a homeless guy $5, which that was like a fucking $100 bill today with inflation. And then, like, not putting anything in the basket. Like, first off, the AA group does not need that much money. It gives to GSO and World Services, and I can send that shit myself. It's, like, not, like, they have plenty of money. It's not going to fail to pay the rent anytime soon. And second of all, I'm not carrying ones, fives, and tens just so I can put money in the basket so some other people think that's how it should be. I'm good. I'm a grown-ass man. I'm going to put money in the AA basket however the fuck I feel like it. But I appreciate their good intentions.
There was a woman there that I've known for a couple years. She'd been through her divorce, and I started talking to her, and she ends up talking about her diet. I'm like, what kind of diet do you eat? She's like, well, a lot of chicken and shit. And I'm real careful about what I eat. I'm like, why do you eat that diet? She's like, oh, I don't know. I just started doing it. I'm like, in my experience, if you want the best diet, whole plant is it. And she starts giving me reasons she can't do it. And I'm like, whatever. I can see she doesn't like me kind of confronting her. But, you know, I'm here to challenge people and hold space for that. I'm a guy that likes to bring stuff to people's attention and challenge people's beliefs and stuff, and that's why it doesn't work to have a wife who does the same shit. I'm the one that's supposed to do that, all right? I don't need that done to me all the time. No, but I'm fine having it done to me too, as long as it's not in my goddamn house every day all day. So I'm like, you know, it's nice. I'm not going around trying to win women's approval and, ooh, walk on eggshells. Like, I'm going to tell you whatever the fuck I feel like right now, and I'm not really concerned whether you want to date me later or not. Still, though, this woman's attractive, but no, no. Remember what I said last night? No. I don't want to just hook up with somebody. I want to have somebody that's like a real teammate who I enjoy spending time with. All right? If you'd value an honest, no-eggshells conversation about something you're facing, I'd be glad to talk with you on a private Zoom call.
Meanwhile, a friend connects me with one of her friends that she had told me about during her massage. I think her friend's a little older than me, maybe like a decade. She really likes this girl, and I think she's single. She says she's pretty. I'm like, I just hope we're a match, and I think we could see what happens. So I text this girl after my friend gives me her info. And about an hour later, she texts back and I'm like, oh, I got a warm lead. How about that? A warm lead. How nice. She says my friend's been saying all kinds of nice things about me and she sends me an audio message. And, you know, her picture on her little contact card on iPhone definitely looks pretty. I'm like, yeah, she definitely looks pretty there. I just hope we hit it off.
And, well, back to the AA meeting, though. So at the meeting, the guy that I'm sitting next to who was in the conversation referenced earlier that I went there to meet, he brings up a topic about a spiritual bypass where if you have an issue with somebody, you know, you should go talk to them directly, not talk a bunch of shit behind their back. I'm like, this guy should not read my fucking books. I'm like, these books are one series of backstabbing ass fucking people. I'll be watching you, but I was thinking the other day, I shouldn't do stupid-ass movie quotes like that, because if you haven't seen Full Metal Jacket, you'd have no idea what I was talking about. You'd be like, that was just weird, man. Like, what was that random comment? Like, fuck it. I don't know if anybody else is ever going to listen to this shit, so I'm going to have a good time making it, all right? Pure creativity. You know, I was picturing, in the future, if these got to be really popular, it'd kind of ruin it, because then maybe I'd start censoring myself. There's a line in Tucker Max's Hilarity Ensues that drops a racial slur so casually it stopped me cold. I was like, Jesus Christ, that's fucking crazy to have in a book. And here I am quoting it, getting it into my own book. It pulls me right into my whole thing about race, which I've talked about plenty: I identify as Black even though I look white, and to me it's just a word, and I love everybody. I feel like I have to defend myself to my own self just for quoting Tucker Max today. Don't be a bitch, Jerry, you're just scared they're going to come get you over a word. Like, fuck it.
I just hope ChatGPT won't be a little bitch and tell me I can't transcribe this, because after I get home tonight, I get to work transcribing my book, which I'm actually thinking about calling I Didn't Need Fixing. I Didn't Need Fixing might be the title, because after transcribing the first couple of chapters, I asked ChatGPT to tell me what it thought, plus I gave each chat window the context for the outlines for the rest of the chapters. And it said, you know, I don't think this actually sounds like it should be called I Finally Got Healthy. I think it should be called I Didn't Need Fixing. And I'm like, all right, that sounds cool. Chat GPT, though, kept getting hung up on the content policy. I'm like, Christ, I'm going to have to transcribe some of the more explicit parts of my own story by hand. I'm going to have to edit that section manually. Shit. And it was funny because sometimes I didn't even notice things in there. There were certain things that, I don't even want to say them again, because I'll have to fucking manually transcribe this shit or manually edit it next time also. I don't want to fucking do that. So they'll be in the book as written, though.
After I get home from the meeting, I work on, I make some hummus, fire up some beans, listen to some Tucker Max, keep laughing my ass off. Also listen to this book by Derek Sivers today, which is actually pretty good. It came up randomly as hell on Spotify, and it's called Hell Yeah or No, What's Worth Doing? I'm like, you know, that actually sounds like a good book for me to listen to, because I want a lot more hell yes in my life and a lot less, eh, whatever's.
So you're like, shit, finish, tell me about the friend's friend that you were texting. All right. So actually I'll read the message I sent her at first. I just sent her a regular ass message. It says, hi, this is Jerry Banfield. I just got your number from a friend. So I text her at 2.09. I don't hear back from her for an hour and a half. I'm like, fuck, did I say something wrong? Should I have given more context? Then she says, hi, Jerry, at 3.28 p.m. Hi, Jerry, our mutual friend has some beautiful things to say about you. She seems to think we should get each other. Then she sends a couple of emojis. And then, right after that, maybe like five minutes later, I didn't respond right away because I'm playing Harry Potter Hogwarts battle with the kids, she sends a nice like two-minute voicemail. And you know, I really love a good voice memo. Remember how I sent that voice memo to a woman I'd been talking to and she didn't respond well to it? Well, this girl apparently feels different. So she sent me a voicemail. So I excused myself from the kids real quick while they were playing the game. And I sent a voicemail for like two minutes to her.
And long story short, after I invited all these women to go for a walk with me at Crescent Lake Park, and they all fucking said no, guess where this woman wants to go for a walk tomorrow? Crescent Lake Park, baby. So we're going to go for a walk. I said we'll go for a walk at 4.44 p.m., you know, angel numbers and shit, just like when I met with a woman I went out with on the beach. But let's back up for a minute. I haven't even met this girl, so I'm working on not fantasizing. And by girl, I mean, this woman is older than me, but I still feel like a teenage boy. It's just boys and girls, we're just having fun. I want to go get to know her. And I'm really excited that a friend is giving me this warm lead.
So I'm really grateful. I got a date, something I'm looking forward to tomorrow where I can go meet another woman. This is, I'm on a fucking streak, y'all. I had one on Saturday, one on Sunday with the dating apps. Now a friend's hooked me up with one of her friends, and she's got a nice Southern accent too. I just hope we hit it off. With a woman I went out with before, looking back, I wish I'd been more forward and just honest about being attracted to her instead of overthinking the personality and the energy so much. Lesson noted. If you're working through your own dating life and the lessons that come with it, you're welcome to book a private one-on-one call with me.
I also sent my mother a text message tonight. I haven't talked to her since Monday and it's Thursday. I sent her a text message. It's so toxic, but I was being funny and formal. Good evening, mom. From now on, I'd like to hang out with you outside of your house. For example, walking the dogs or going to the dog park with the kids. Or you can come over to my house. She hadn't responded back yet, which is fine. And I'm like, you know, I just want to set up like, hey, I'm alive and well. I just want to let you know, you know, we need to change things in our relationship. I love my mother. At the same time, though, hanging out at her house where there's pill bottles all over, the fridge is stuffed with shit food. The kids go over there and eat like an ice cream sandwich or a fucking Popsicle and a thing of Smarties, the big quarter-size things of Smarties. You know, they just go over there and eat shit. And then lately she's gotten into just watching Winnie the Pooh with them. You know, she has stuff to draw with the kids and things like that. But I'm tired of bringing the kids over there. And, you know, it's nice that I'm there with my mom. But at the same time, I'm like, this is not the environment I want my kids hanging out in. We asked her to pick the pill bottles up before and she didn't. And she's a hoarder. So I thought texting would be a simple way to communicate this boundary and be straightforward about it. And yes, I would like to still be able to see my mom, but our relationship just got into a rut of going over there, seeing her house, talking about the same kind of shit. And often I feel worse after I go over there, and often just seeing her out of obligation, not joy.
To wrap the night up, I clean the shit out of the kitchen. I make some hummus. I throw some spicy peppers in the hummus to make it nice and spicy with a little garlic. And I have a couple of carrots and some celery with it. I know, right? I'm fucking wild. Then I roll through. I use ChatGPT to grind through processing like 20,000 words of the first couple of chapters of what might be called I Didn't Need Fixing. It's still cold as hell in here. I'm wearing a coat and I'm under a blanket on the couch. But man, I'm thankful for a great start to the new year today. Really grateful to have given out all those books, even though I did get a call on this phone today. No voicemail or anything, just a missed call. So nobody's texting me yet, which they said to fucking text me. But anyway, we'll see. I got a new distribution strategy and I'm ready for bed. Looking forward to tomorrow.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.