A Reflecting Kinda Post on a Friday Night

Wow, what a week. Ups, downs, and all arounds.

Dealt with the towed bike today. $106. Holy fucking hell. Oh, right, yeah, my scooter was towed. I wrote a rant on the other blog. $106. That doesn't even include the ticket I'm contesting.

My first paycheque's always tight 'cos I have rent, insurance, and a couple other small bills. I seldom get social at the beginning of the month. I focus on silly things like food and maybe some videos. But $106 for a ticket I think is totally fucking bogus because it goes against everything I was taught about parking by an actual parking enforcement officer, THAT pisses me off. But I'm dealing.

And while I'll be broke off my ass, tonight I'm dining on ginger-teriyaki salmon, grilled balsamic asparagus, "grill fries" my style with sea salt, and fire-roasted corn on the cob. Fan-fucking-tastic. Like, wow. Took me 20 minutes to cook, and has virtually no oil involved. Very, very healthy stuff. The corn didn't even need salt, it was so sweet and lightly charred. Mm-mm good.

On the upside of being broke, I can afford veggies and beans, so it'll be a nice and healthy couple weeks. Ha. Then again, I do have some fish in the freezer, so I can eat that as well. Sunday's my foodie day on the cheap so I don't need to spend money for five days. Beans and sausages, Steff-goes-Italian style of my own creation (lots of peppers and tomatoes and Italian sausage, too), and baked falafels for sandwiches all week. Beans for lunch every day, energy food post-stairs and for cycling! Then falafel at night for casual couch food. Cheap, $25 total, likely, since I already made my tzatziki a few days ago. :) Have fish some night for variety and health, and the week'll be taken care of. It'll be a fun foodie day, and it'll take the edge off being a little too broke for comfort, knowing whatever else happens I'll be eating nicely all week.

Eating seafood (and enjoying it) is something I've been trying to train myself to do for a long time. This is the first time I'm succeeding with it. I never would've imagined I'd be eating salmon and appreciating it. I used to retch at the smell of it. But it's part of being so sick of being sick and tired and weak all the time, and changing my life for the better.

I'm still working hard at the total-overhaul thing. I make no great leaps or strides in any one area in any short amount of time, but the progress I've made this year in all areas of my life really do make me proud of myself. It's been difficult, the struggle to believe in myself during the wearying work of it all. But I've held on. It's good. :)

My website's improving a lot, and my traffic continues to improve. I've tripled the traffic and quadrupled my feed subscribers. I've gone up in Technorati's rankings from 376,000th up to 109,000, and all since about February sometime. Not too shabby. Gonna take a lot more work now to increase the traffic. I'm building credibility, figuring my writing's strong enough to draw traffic on its own merits, but I got to start doing the commenting-everywhere thing so people start trying to track down my work. It's what I did before to get readers. Trick is, they got to be good comments, right? Otherwise who cares. I'm not really "on" enough to be a sharp commenter right now, so. Hey.

Then the weight's a huge accomplishment but still needs more work. I've lost between 32-36 pounds depending on the day (jesus) and every single piece of clothing is loose or flat-out too big. It's ridiculous, yet awesome.

Money's still a drag but I'm sorting shit out. It doesn't just improve overnight. I'm still playing catch-up from the lean times.

It all adds up. Slowly but surely. And this food thing, well, that's been a life-long struggle. Eating a good meal like this surprises me, honestly, since it involves salmon, healthy stuff, little fat, tons of flavour, and no bread. I mean, hey, it's a good thing.

Ahh, yes, full and contented now, time to take a breather. Enjoy your weekend. My Saturday's a concert, tix taken care of with an IOU-when-my-ass-can-get-it from a buddy, a barbecue from the freezer for my friends. But it'll be awesome, I'm sure. Then I can be broke and satisfied. The Von Bondies. Cool. There are songs where the idea of being in a small sweaty venue with 400 other people when the band throws down is just EVERYTHING that being a music fan is about. The Von Bondies' C'mon C'mon is one of those anthemic songs that just unleashes energy on ya like you wouldn't believe. I can't wait to hear that, and will throw a stool if I do not.

I will throw a stool if I do not!

Okay, I won't, but I'll visualize it and swear lots!