Leap Day. It’s been a whole thing today, but I finally have some time to write, and it’s been a really long time since I’ve written about sobriety. I guess the reason, mostly, is just because I think less and less about being sober as time goes on. I just am, you know? There was a long period of adjustment, self-doubt, just feeling super self conscious about admitting that I had a problem, feeling like a sack of shit because of it, then getting used to it, feeling more and more confident and now… settling into it. And it’s been really great!

So, today… a trial of errors of sorts. My wife and I went to get a bike rack installed on my car and the dude who installed it was really nice, but goddammit, he was fucking dumb. I can’t stress this enough, he was a sweet guy, but just dumb as fuck, and he showed me how to use the rack wrong, so when I loaded up the bikes, on my very first turn, my wife’s bike came tumbling out and got banged the fuck up, totally unrideable and the plan for going for a long ride totally shot. I walked the bike home and told her I’d try to fix it and, to my surprise, I actually did fix it. I banged the fender back into shape with a rubber mallet and adjusted some screws and, oh, fuck, it actually worked. I tried locking it back up, but her lock was all fucked up and corroded, but after I poured some vinegar into it, some rusty-ass water spilled out and, bam, good as new. I decided to keep this momentum going, so we pounded some six foot stakes into the ground and zip-tied some of that bamboo wall stuff to them for a privacy wall in the backyard.

I felt super productive today, so I earned some sit-on-my-ass time in my little home theater I set up in the spare office of my house recently. We took advantage of the Criterion half-off sale and got Days of Heaven, Mulholland Drive, Ace in the Hole and 45 Years. I’m still not sure which two we’ll watch, but it’s definitely gonna be a double feature. After putting the screening room together, our first double feature was Pulp Fiction followed by RoboCop and it was rad as fuck.

Lately, I’ve been getting into shape. I’ve been trying get into shape for years, but this time is different. Something broke inside of me, I dunno. My wife and I decided to start eating way, way, way better and not have “I-deserve-this-shitty-cheat-meal-three-times-a-week” breakdowns. We’ve been at it for I wanna say a little over two months now, and exercising consistently for even longer than that and it’s actually been yielding results. My buddy bought me this rad t-shirt I couldn’t fit into for my birthday and now the shirt not only fits, but is a little loose now.

My wife had this gag being like, “I lost twelve pounds and all I had to do was exercise five-to-six times a week, only eat a cheat meal once a week, change my entire dietary habit completely, turn down free pizza at work, keep a log of my exercise, buy a fitness tracker to monitor my heart rate and cardio for fat burn, track calories lost, research low-calorie, filling recipes, cook every single meal, basically, three times a week for weeks and weeks and it was really easy! Everyone can do it! Assuming they have the time, energy, money and access to the same stores I do!!” And I was going to steal her joke and make that the format for my entire write-up tonight, but I got lazy as fuck and started off on a tangent, so I decided to just go where the wind takes me.

Staying fit has been great, though. It’s actually been really kind to my wallet, too. Not having to eat out almost every meal for lunch has added up. The funny thing is how eating badly as changed. I do the cheat meal thing once a week, and my eyes are always bigger than my stomach is now. I used to be able to demolish a pizza like nothing, and certainly pay for it the next day, I can eat about half as much as I used to be able to and at the end I’ll be like, fuck, who am I now? Who is the person who calls it quits after a sensible amount of tacos?!

My fitness schedule is basically Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I lift weights, do push-ups and then sit-ups. Tuesday and Thursday, I run. I have a circuit that I run where three laps equal a mile. I started off with three, now I’m up to four, and my ultimate goal is to run 6 laps. Saturday or Sunday I either go for a hike or a bike ride, just a sort of bonus workout.

These are always great, though, and I want to be a little bit more consistent about writing now that my life isn’t so hectic and I don’t have to drive two hours to get home from a job that rents me to a home that make me want to die. Life is pretty simple these days, thank fucking god.