This is my journal entry from December 20, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I'm kind of sad and depressed recording this. It's been a lingering mood all day. Got up this morning to chair a morning recovery meeting, where I asked a woman there if she wanted to date a week ago, and she said she didn't date guys in AA. Just another long line of not getting things to go. But today I came bringing the topic about being prepared. Often when sobriety is going good, we don't think about being prepared. It's like, oh yeah, let the good times roll. But to me, those are the times to make sure you prepare to handle shit. And I'm real grateful that I prepared well enough to handle my divorce and my career change and moving all at the same time. And I'm preparing for a future where I'm doing everything I can to set up a joyful life.
But I can imagine people saying, well, God's time. It's God's time. Fuck that. It's ridiculous. What am I supposed to do? Sit on my ass and do nothing? Just figure God's going to do everything? That shit's not going to happen. Like, everything in my life that comes to me comes because of the positions I put myself in, the work I do. But yeah, then all I can do is do the best I can, do the work I can, ask for help, and then the results, all the stuff that comes to me, I got to just open up and receive.
I'm doing that. After I went to the meeting this morning, I talked to a few people a little bit. And then I'm like, you know what? Today's the day to really get to work on the business system. Today's the work to see if we can progress on the business system. So what I did was I talked to ChatGPT. And I'm like, I think I need to send letters. I tried to stick a letter or like a piece of paper on my door crack and it didn't work. I'm like, I don't think letters and door cracks can be the thing to do. And I was looking at the houses on the way back from the meeting. I'm like, I need to get into the mailbox, especially for like the rich and fancy ass houses. That's the only access you can get is the mailbox. I'm not going up some nice ass house from fucking 50 yard driveway and trying to stick a letter in the crack. Nah. Plus the letter in the crack seems cheap. I'm looking.
I figure my average customer for writing a book or coaching should be like average customer value of maybe 10 grand. You know, some might be 30. Some might be a few thousand. So I'm looking to do something that's high quality service for people with money. That means probably a letter in the mail. So I worked it all out with ChatGPT. This is a business plan, all right? So I bought six by nine envelopes. I bought like 300 of those today at an office supply store. I bought 1,000 sheets of 28-pound paper. I bought 1,000 fucking stamps. 1,000 stamps. $780. Threw it all on a 0% interest credit card. And let's go, baby. Brought it all home. Got my letter ready to go. My ex-wife read the letter yesterday. Said it was good. ChatGPT analyzed it. Said it's good. Looks good to me. So.
Now, I just go on Google Maps. But I start thinking, you know, there's houses that are empty and for sale and knocked down. It's like I probably should go, you know, canvas the neighborhood first and try and weed out all the houses where my letters are going to be wasted. But before that, my ex-wife calls and said the kids would like to come visit, which is a great highlight of my day. The kids come over a little after 1. My daughter and my son really want to play the Harry Potter deck building game, where there's seven different levels of the game you can play. And we're playing game six right now. You build your deck. You pick characters, four characters. You build your deck, and you try and defeat all the dark wizards, all the Death Eaters. And we ended up, right after my ex-wife got here, we ended up taking down Voldemort, and we won. I made the kids popcorn while they were here. My son had an apple also. We had such a nice time. It was the best part of my day. They left the game on the floor. We played on the floor because I don't have a proper dining room table and chairs in this house. There's no point in getting one now. I'll get it after I move. If you're rebuilding your life around what matters most too, I'd love for you to grow alongside us in the Jerry Banfield Family.
After the kids left, I went to work canvassing the neighborhood to test out how long it'd take to see how many houses were empty. Walked like 20, 30 minutes, and I only found like 10 or so houses out of over 100, which means the empty or knockdown house rate's probably less than 10%, which means if you calculate the time it takes to do that versus the amount of money and time saved sending letters, you might as well just roll the dice and send the letters even when the houses are potentially unoccupied. It's not worth the time to slow the workflow down. So I ended up hearing what I thought might have been my ex-wife's dogs barking. I was going to go over there, but it's my ex-wife's fucking house and her dogs at this point. But my mom's across the street, so I ended up hanging out with my mom for like 30 minutes. And that was good.
Still feeling kind of down and sad. I was thinking about a woman I'd been talking to from last night. I'm like, man, sure would be nice if she was available and we could hang out. We have so much fun. Enjoy talking with her. She smiles and laughs so much with me. I'm like, what's she doing right now? Like, a woman I went out with is on her trip. Like, man, shouldn't I? And I listen to the rest of Elizabeth Gilbert's book talking about her celibacy for five years and love and sex addiction. I'm like, fuck, haven't I done enough time celibate in my life already? I mean, from the year 2000, when I was 16 years old, to the year 2011, I was celibate most of the time. And it's because I either wouldn't lower my standards enough or things kept not working out.
I had a girlfriend about a year and a half in the middle of that. She cheated on me because I was being an asshole. I left her in a movie theater one night. I was just sitting in the parking lot, but she wanted to watch the credits. I was like, fuck that. We're getting up and going. She's like, no, I'm going to stay and watch the credits. I'm like, I'm leaving. So I walked out. She cried, and she tried to move her shit out that night, but I begged her to stay, and then she stayed a few weeks longer, and it was bad, and then she cheated, and then she did pack all her shit up. And I'm glad she did at the time. It was so hard. But, man, I dated some really great women after her. And I had a great wife and a couple of kids. Now I'm fucking divorced again. Sitting in my house recording this shit at 9:34 at night.
After hanging out with my mom, I thought it'd be nice to get a little workout today. I had a big salad for lunch. And then I got the blender out that Amazon sent me, a new Ninja blender. This shit looked like it had been returned. There was a fucking long woman's hair in there. Half the shit was out of the plastic bags. There was dishwasher spots on it, soap spots. One of the things had been scraped. This shit was supposed to be brand new. What the fuck is this? So I messaged Amazon. They're like, you can just return it. I'm like, yeah, I want a blender though. Somebody else can get stuck with a shitty blender. It's like, I already got it at the house. At this point, I don't want to fuck with a return and then buy another one and have it sent. It seems, let me, can I just get a partial refund? They're like, how about $18? I'm like, fuck, all right. The blender is like 160, so I guess that's more than 10% back on it. I'm like, shit. You know, that's a free pack of Larabars, whatever. Sure, I'll take it. Like, I was prepared to not take anything because it's really not that big of a deal. It's more about the principle, and I'm not going to argue the principle on a $160 product.
Then I listened to a whole comedy special today, too. I've been trying to cheer myself the fuck up, you know? I've been trying to cheer myself up. I've been doing what I can. I watched, I think it was Jimmy Carr. I watched Jimmy Carr's whole comedy special. Yeah, he was funny as shit. Now, if it wasn't fucking Jimmy Carr, it was another Australian guy. I wish Amazon, Netflix made it easier to see who you just liked. But I had a nice one. I laughed listening to all his shit. And yet, I don't know. It's just like I'm still down. But it's okay. I'll feel better tomorrow probably. Y'all heard how I was doing the day before. I'm like, I'm not making this diary so fucking long. Jesus Christ. Like, it's too long. It's way too long.
But I went to my gym for a little workout tonight. And I did the Stairmaster. It was Jim Jeffries. There he goes. Jim Jeffries. I watched his special. It was funny. It was one of his newer ones. And I went to the gym. Didn't even wear my headphones. But then I went to do boxing. I got my boxing gloves on. And I fucking hurt my arm a little bit. Yeah, I listened to Jim Jeffries' Two Limb Policy. That shit was good. And I was punching a bag and shit, and I fucked up some little outside muscle attachment or something on top of my arm, like if you turn the steering wheel to the right and left. But you know what I love about this body? It'll fix that shit up soon enough. It'll fix that shit up. It's fine. It'll fix it up. In no time, have it all back together. Doesn't hurt that bad.
Then I get back from the gym. I'm still fucking depressed. I clean up the kids' Harry Potter deck-building game, and I left in the middle while I did laundry and shit, washed dishes, got the blender washed, made fucking hummus. I cried a little bit, missing the kids, feeling like I fucked my life all up. I used to have Saturday nights with my family, but I wasn't doing shit with them last time. Really, being divorced is not a hell of a lot different than how we were living, except we were in the same house. It's funny now that I was complaining about our sex life back then, when it's been a month and a half and I've been on my own since the divorce. And honestly, with a woman I had been seeing, I kept trying to rationalize that it should be good enough. Like, it's fucking not good enough. All right? It's not. I was only into it when I was desperate, and I don't want to settle like that. But even when I was married, it wasn't good enough for me either, was it? Fuck! If you're in a heavy, lonely stretch like this, I'd be glad to talk it through with you one-on-one on a private Zoom call.
So I'm sitting around thinking how lonely I am and shit. I'm like, God damn it. Let me get out to a fucking AA meeting again tonight. Even though I already chaired a meeting this morning. Maybe some of my friends will be there and shit. So I drive out to this meeting like 20 minutes away. And a few of my boys that were there a couple weeks ago weren't there. Not many girls there tonight either. I'm like, fuck. I'll just actually listen to this meeting. But it was nice. I enjoyed hearing a couple of guys spoke. Got me out of myself for a few minutes. Surrounded myself with some people, which felt good.
And I drove back home listening to Leslie Jones' stand-up called Time Machine. It's on Netflix. She's talking about, you know, the differences between your 20s, 30s, 40s. I'm like, you know what? I mean, I see she's trying to be funny, but some of this is garbage-ass programming, too, because, you know, when I hung out with my teenage cousin or my teenage nephew, shit, I didn't feel that much different than him. He lifted some more weights than I did. He was talking a little harder than I was. I'm like, it's not that different, all right? I feel like a lot of that negative shit based on age actually does make things real in the body. I think these bodies with the proper mindset and care could live like 1,000 or 2,000 years. I believe that shit from the Bible. I think these bodies could live that long. What the fuck do I know?
I was thinking it'd be nice if somebody like a woman I'd been talking to just texted me tonight. Like, hey, I would love to hang out with you. I was thinking about you. Why don't we do something? Goddamn, wouldn't that be nice? But you know what? I'm not texting. All right? Because, you know, if she's trying to keep me at arm's length, I'm going to stay at arm's length. I'm not going to be trying to constantly blow her phone up and getting turned down over and over again. Now I'm good. I know some girls like a guy to pursue them. Constantly be all over him and shit. But I'm not. That doesn't feel right to me. That feels stalker-ish. So there you go.
It's like, oh, fuck. I don't want to record a diary tonight. Fucking depressed and shit. But you know, it's all good. I'll probably feel great tomorrow. I'll probably. Here's how shit will probably go. I'll start feeling pretty good tomorrow and have a fucking great date with a woman I went out with and be on top of the world. And then I'll just stay on top of this the rest of the time I'm here until I pass. How about that? I would love to have a great time with her on Monday. You know, that would be nice. I realize I don't know what's going to happen. It could be good. It could be all right. It could not go very well. Usually stuff goes well in my life, except dating girls and this work lately has been like, fuck.
But I'm hungry. I'm hungry for that real connection with a woman. Don't you ever try to fuck me, my sponsor. And I don't care if Elizabeth Gilbert wants to call it love and sex addiction. I get high as shit off these women, and I love it. I fucking love it. There's nothing like it. I mean, why wouldn't you want that? It's awesome. So I'm going to wrap this shit up.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.