Monthly, 07/24

TL;DR: July was “meh”. That’s really all that I can reasonably say about it. That and that I hope that August will be better.

July wasn’t a good month, all in all. I can’t pinpoint the exact reason or the cause for that summary, but everything was pretty much “meh”. Work was slow, in the wrong way.

I painted a small set of miniatures, which was surprisingly not fun. I couldn’t extract a lot of joy out of it, which I blame my current living situation for. Having to paint on a small tray on your dining table isn’t as much fun as using your actual desk for it. Especially if you took a break from painting for a few months.

I managed to make some progress on the renovation. The old paint is finally almost removed entirely. And all the old furniture has been dismantled and, for the most part, been prepared for transporation to the local garbage dump.

The sole thing of note here is that I decided on sunsetting my PGP-key. The reasons for that are manyfold, and in an ideal world I would have finished my draft for the post explaining the decision by now.

As for at least one positive thing, I managed to be more consistent in regard to my physical health. For most of the month I was able to visit the gym three times per week, and even got in some occasional physical activity - mostly cycling - outside of it. I also began tracking my eating habits, for no reason other than that the app I used for documenting my workouts supports it. For reasons I don’t understand that helped with improving my food intake significantly.

When I began my “food journaling” I expected to be shocked by how unhealthily I was eating. Not because I actively sought out bad food, like junk food and sweets, but because I have trouble eating to begin with, so I usually just randomly grab what’s around. And in most cases that’s not exactly healthy food. There were days where a full load of bread was my lunch. Because “eh, whatever”.

The actually surprising thing was that, for most days, I wasn’t meeting any of my nutritional needs. Except for carbohydrates, where I was mostly on point for the common recommendations for people my age, body type and weight, I wasn’t giving my body what it was needing. Especially when it came to Proteine, I regularly managed to take in 50% less of what I was supposed to. Even my caloric intake, which shouldn’t be hard to meet, wasn’t up to demand.

That knowledge, in combination with my Goblin brain which seems to enjoy cataloguing things, helped me with being more conscious about my meals. It’s not perfect, by far not. But there have been significant improvements. I’m curious to see where it leads, and if there are going to be positive changes in weight, some health issues I deal with, and workout performance.

As with most things, I had a really hard time with reading this month. I don’t know why that was, but I couldn’t get myself to open a book - especially during the first half of the month. I don’t think I have read at all during that time.

Not even audiobooks, which are usually my go-to during chores, commutes or even during the gym sometime. It just didn’t feel right. This means that compared to the past few months my list of reading “accomplishments” (it’s not a competition after all) is short:

  • “The Cold War: A World History” by Odd Arne Westad made its way into my collection during one of my “Eh, might as well check the local bookstore out, I’m sure nothing bad is going to .. well look at those three new books”-trips

  • “A Short History of Russia: From the Pagans to Putin” by Mark Galeotti; the name is fitting - it’s a short, as far as I am aware quite comprehensive, summary of the history of Russia. Would equally recommend it as an introduction or a refresher.

  • “The Darth Putin Guide to Being a Master Strategist: 13 Rules on How to Think, Act, Dress & Date Like a Master Strategist” by .. Darth Putin KGB was a gift by a coworker. They told me they saw it and immediately thought of me (make of that what you will, I certainly haven’t yet).

    Look - the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the undeclared war Russia is waging in Europe, the crimes of the Russian government against their own people at home, .. all of those are serious, horrible matters. But despite, or even because of all of this, this book is absolutely hilarious.

    I can’t even remember the last time a book got me to actually laugh out loud. 10/10.

Music suffered a similar fate as reading. Except for the same playlist I have been listening to for literal years while working out there wasn’t much that I listened to until the very end of the month. Thus my “three albums” of the month are very recent discoveries.

  • I haven’t heard of the genre “Dungeon Synth” until I stumbled upon Erang and their album “The Kingdom is Ours” on the Discover-page of Bandcamp. It helped that their discography was 5$, which made it easy to satisfy my need for completeness. But the sound is dope too. I found it oddly relaxing.
  • I mistook " 永遠の悲しみ" by Monodrone for your typical Vaporwave album because of the aesthetics. But personally, I’d rather qualify it as “Ambient”. But whatever it is, it’s a good one.
  • “Triptych: Part Two” by Harvestman was interesting. Their own description of “traditional folk songs distilled and distorted into abstract guitar psychedelica” is on point, and it was fascinating to listen to. I would absolutely recommend the experience to others. However I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed listening to it, it wasn’t pleasant in the traditional sense of the word. It’s on Bandcamp, give it a listen, see hear for yourself.

Really hoping that August is going to go better for me.