This is my journal entry from February 11, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
We woke up today and got off to school quickly. I dropped both kids off at 7:45. I actually missed my snuggle time with my son today. I love how cooperative they were. I got some snuggles with my son in bed and kids got up, ate their breakfast and everything. I just love having them here in the morning. Not long after I got home, then I went to go meet a friend for tennis and I had a nice time playing with him until the game started. And then he whooped my ass the first four games in a row, although several of the games I started 30 love, and then he came back and beat me.
I then started to imagine this imaginary crowd of people, which I'm embarrassed to admit, it started with the woman from my yoga class, who I don't even hardly know. Like, Jesus Christ, let's fantasize a little bit more, okay? It's just a placeholder, you know, a general idea, since it can help to be clear in your fantasies, all right. And it's just, she's a placeholder, and I hope she places the hold. But yeah, so I started imagining, like, how cool would it be if I was dating a girl that came to watch me play tennis with my friend. I'd love that. And then I started picturing, well, the kids would probably love to come watch. I mean, they wouldn't actually because they're in school. But how cool would it be if the kids were cheerleading? Then I started to picture, like, my late father and a friend from my recovery group who has passed. And it ended up being a whole crowd, all right? I just started picturing having an audience and people cheering for me. And I started to play a lot better. I cranked out a couple of wins in the first set. Actually, three. After I started 0-4, I ended up losing the set 3-6. But I came roaring back in the second set and actually won the second set 6-4. My friend was surprised. I just started playing as hard as I could. And then he destroyed me in the tiebreaker. And we had fun. A friend came out to watch us as well. So we had a real audience. How funny was it when I was thinking about that audience so much? We did have a woman come out there to watch us play for real. And that was cool.
I went home and I still haven't showered. I've been meaning to shower. It's 10:55 while I'm recording this. I've been meaning to shower since I got home from tennis at like 12:30. And it still hasn't happened yet. But I think it's going to happen pretty soon because I'm about to go to bed. I came home, had a nice big salad, and just started listening to another one of Gary Zukav's books, Soul Stories. And then I finished un-effing myself. I was going to redo the title, but I didn't. I'm like, you know what? I like the title Un-effin' Myself. And that's a big, deep memoir. I want a title that really feels right to me. So I called it Un-effin' Myself, snapped a picture in my collared shirt out in the front of the house, drew my own custom background on a piece of paper behind it, and scanned it, and then just stuck that in as a cover. I mean, you can always remake the cover later, right? Fuck it. Just get the thing up there and approve. So it's live on Amazon now. My big, like 10 hour long dictated 100,000 word memoir, which that's pretty sweet. I guess I do dictate 10,000 words an hour if it's 10 hours dictated. And it's 100,000 words. I went through this morning and just kind of, I thought about the title and looked to polish stuff, but it all came out. It looks good. Like it looks good and it doesn't need to be absolutely perfect.
After that, I got into a bit of dysphoria. I looked at my Amazon ads after I'd paused them yesterday and I'm like, fuck man, Amazon ads, this just might be too much. I don't know if I can do it. But then I read this book, an entire book on Amazon ads today. And there were typos in it too, which it still had lots of great ratings and stuff, but there were minor grammatical errors in it. But I had good information about ads and it left me feeling kind of dumb though. I'm like, damn, there's a lot of shit I don't know here. And other people have this stuff figured out already and they got their ad budgets and their books selling. But I take it most authors don't figure this out because there's a lot of depth to it. And thus, after wondering what I'm going to do, I dove back in.
I made an ad campaign for I'm Seeking a Wife, and I immediately submitted an ad campaign for Un-effin' Myself. On the previous ads, I had not wrote custom text on them. And with my short little titles, it's necessary to have text to explain further what the book's about. So it looks like the ads are delivering right now, which is great for un-effing myself because ChatGPT was concerned that the un-effing myself might sound like I'm swearing, but so far it's went through just fine. And I made a new ad for I'm Seeking a Wife, which further explains the context of the book. And I'm excited. It looks like the ad is still pending review on that one, but it went through immediately on my un-effing myself. So we will see how this comes out and go from there. You just test, retest, and see what happens.
I slipped back into dysphoria and fear for a little bit, but at the same time, I went through and sorted my books out because I still had three boxes of books in my closet. I'm like, it's time to get all these books out of my house, get these books out to other people who might read them. I took a stack of books, like probably 10 books, at least a bunch of different books and put them all in the free library right there at Crescent Lake. Like I just walked down the street with all these books and stuck them in there. And it was mostly empty. It looks like it's a newer one they put up there. So I filled it up. It's got mostly Jerry Banfield books in it now. And I'm like, you know, those are out of the house and people go looking for books to read in there. And somebody might read them. I got all the other books sorted. I put a row of them on the top of my entertainment center because really I should have a collection of my own books in my house too that's easily visible. So I got those out and I put all the rest of the books in three boxes in my car. And whenever I run by a free library, I'm just going to drop some books in it wherever I go. That's the plan for now.
I was thinking about going to an AA meeting, but I wasn't feeling any of the AA meetings. I just went through and sorted everything with the ads. So I went out to the song circle at 7 p.m. And I got there and my friend was leading the song circle tonight, which is a big reason why I wanted to go. And another friend and a friend's partner arrived also. I saw a couple other people I knew from a local spiritual community there too. And the song circle started out to ask people to go around and share something that's on your heart, a word that's on your heart and your name and your sound. So I said the word was lonely. I really didn't want to say it, but it's true. I was sitting there, out there with some of these people I know that are friends and these other people and just feeling lonely. I'm like, you know, I'm at somewhere new and I'm not that thrilled about it, honestly. The first hour and a half of the song circle, oh my God, my mind was just going nuts. Chanting these songs. I mean, they're nice. Like, I'm so grateful they did one Connor Price little verse about gratitude. And like, yes, I do need to internalize this clearly. Like, I definitely want to believe this stuff and live it and feel it. I really do want to be feeling this.
But right before I left to go to the song circle, my brother sent me a message back after I'd messaged him a few days that I was, you know, sorry for not coming to his wedding. I was wrong that I got all jealous of him and attacked his life. And well, he didn't take the amends. He sent me a long message back ranting and sounding pretty hurt still and not very forgiving. So that means I guess I need to be the one to forgive in this situation. Now, I got to forgive his message back to my message. That's fine. But I was kind of feeling a little closed hearted when I got there. And there's this beautiful girl there that's like hanging on this dude there. And I like this dude, too. And he spoke. And here comes more jealousy. Like, I'd love to have a connection like that, wouldn't you? I'm like, yes. Yes, I would. Let's just be honest about that and admit that it hurts. It hurts that I don't have that. And it's okay. Let's just let it hurt. Let it hurt. So I did. And it just, it hurt. And yet, at the same time, I'm like, you know what, I can handle it. I hope this is a productive kind of pain, like where it hurts working out, where you know you're getting stronger. I'd like to think that's happening. Otherwise, I'm just torturing myself needlessly.
Yet by the time my friend did the song she made, my heart started to soften a bit. And by the end of it, when we shared again, I said that I felt centered. And I do. I feel centered. I had a nice talk with my friends afterwards. There was this person, I was kind of closed coming in, and this person just tapped my leg and said, hi, and in my head I was like, not now. And she picked that vibe up and went over the other side of the circle. I'm like, can't I just love people even if I'm not attracted to them? Can't I just find something to love about somebody? And I think I can. I think I can find something to love about somebody. But it's just real easy to love somebody when I'm drawn to them. It's just so easy and natural to pour my heart out. And yet, damn, this little self of mine judges people on their appearance, and then worships the ones that are beautiful. Maybe someday it'll operate differently. I'm kind of scared, though, because what if I do open my heart and then I'm with someone I'm not even drawn to? And I sit with that as honestly as I can.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.