The rain falls. Cracks of earth have been the feature of my yard. How this year's crop of grass has pined for the downpour!

Simon & Garfunel's Old Friends 1997 compilation set fills the room with melodies of my past. This 3-CD set served as the soundtrack to countless stories across the I-40 landscape. How often have I taken a step back in my life and wondered if these stories are actually mine? How often have I done that as I wrote them?

There have been others, of course, like the Counting Crows quadrumvirate of August and Everything After (1993), Recovering the Satellites (1996), This Desert Life (1999) and Hard Candy (2002).

Or the masterful Shinedown live album, Somewhere In The Stratosphere (2011), a reminder of my grad school past, or Vedder's Into the Wild (2007), a companion into Alaska.

Recorded in January-February 1997, Foo Fighter's Everlong is an OST in its own 4:11 span. In my world, February 26, 1997 was the opening of the Wolfchase Galleria. In that era, it was the locus for so much of my life. I had jobs at the Store of Knowledge and the World of Science (twice); friends worked at places like Johnny Rocket's, the Sunglass Hut, Stride Rite Shoes and Hallmark. Walking around with my best friend, something new always seemed right around the corner. Everlong spoke to that time. The rhythm of the night was always Everlong.

And all those stores have disappeared. The people are no more. The sound is silenced. A part of me longs for what that was. These days, that mall is a metaphor for everything I HATE about Memphis—about time itself.

It is gone, but I am still here.

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Fitness

Whether serendipitous or ignominious, the features of the path that lies ahead remains to be seen in this adventure for I had to power down my Legs workout this morning.

I warmed up with shadowboxing, completed my 5 sets of squats and then moved on to my unweighted leg extensions, an exercise that had plans to elevate the rep amount. I sat down, began cranking that second exercise out and...

Pain.

Earlier that morning, I bristled against something in my squats—I did not drive so deeply. I knew I had something going on before my first rep, but I thought I could wing it and I thought I had by overcoming my squats—they can be stressful on my lower body. But unweighted leg extensions? C'mon, they are oh so simple! Something was wrong.

I do not mind sore pain in a workout; sharp pain, on the other hand, scares me. It just felt like my right patella was scraping along with each rep. The amusing thing is that specific exercise is the easiest of the day and is just there for my quad rehab. Truly, it is the last one of the entire week I would expect as a showstopper.

Where to go from here? I was thinking of reworking my Wednesdays anyway into something unique. Never have I found generic leg resistance workouts of interest. In practice, I would align myself with skill abilities with my legs rather than with strength and aesthetics alone. I want every day to be a blast for my workout, something that would be a hallmark of the day.

Geek

Google Sheets

If you are interested in ease of readability, or a quicker/cleaner way to ensure your entering data on the right day with Google Sheets, for a while now, I have been lovin' using this bit of code on a conditional formatting with dates running down a column. It is as if I highlighted the entire row for today. Of course, the day can be adjusted by a bit of +/- math on the TODAY function:

=COUNTIF($A1:$FW1, TODAY())

More info: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093480?hl=en

Dungeons & Dragons

I have been adopting more into my approach to being a DM in DnD. Curiously, I am finding value in moving away from tech during the game itself. That is right: I prefer lower tech for DnD, technologies like paper. I do not refrain from copper and gold applications entirely—things pop up like "What are the stats involved when someone chooses a fight to the death with a raccoon?"

That said, there is a lot of preparation I can do to be more effective in the moment. This is an analogy for life as well:

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Uniquely equipped with both strengths because of my INTJ capabilities, I appreciate the timestamp below of David Harbour's take on what a good DnD party needs:

You need people that are gonna play by the rules and then you need people that are gonna break the rules...if you have too many good students it's just not that fun and if you have too many rule breakers you can't get anything done and nothing moves.

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In the afterglow of a successful fat fast over the weekend, yesterday morning, I hit the carpet at 3 AM; drank my butter and caffeine brew; and hit the weights for my Back day. I was not at 100% because I chose to go to bed at 10:30 PM. But, when am I ever at 100%?

I slashed through the shadowboxing warmup; I cracked through the 5 sets of the first exercise, a series of shrugs. I then hit the 2nd exercise, a series of dumbbell rows as I applied the new target weight that I entered on Saturday.

It was CHALLENGING. My form was all over the place.

What gives? I did not plan a crazy jump in weight. I knocked the weight target down to last week's. Maybe I overestimated my ability. It was HEAVY. I did it, but it took so much. In my rest time, I quivered; I internally felt shaky. And my emotions confronted me. Thoughts whirled about in my head. I even sat there—not even standing.

Was it the lack of sleep? Did I hit a wall entering my 7th week? "Maybe all of this is a waste." In a simpler tone, I questioned, "Maybe I ought to adopt an erudite focus, use that 3 AM hour to consider the universe?"

My headspace was messed up. I walked away instead of taking on that second set of rows. In defeat, I fell into bed for a two-hour nap.

The cessation was a mistake.

Around midday, I returned. Of course I did. As I got revved up to tackle again that second set, I recognized I made a BLUNDER:

In the early hours, I misread "incline rows" as "upright rows." Well, those are two different things ENTIRELY! OF COURSE, the weight I use for incline rows is higher than for upright rows! Unfortunately, I finished the 5 sets of the exercise at a higher weight before I came to that realization.

I had this song in my ears during it:

In the end,
As you fade into the night,
Who will tell the story of your life?
And who will remember your last goodbye?
'Cause it's the end and I'm not afraid,
I'm not afraid to die.

A takeaway: I now know that next week's Shoulders day of upright rows ought to be elevated to that new weight I achieved. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to add upright rows this Thursday to get my lats in for the week.

I finished things up, did my shadowboxing cooldown and then did two hours of yardwork in a heat index of 97℉.

Later that day, I was pumped for today's Chest day. I couldn't wait! And...I slept in—I don't know what happened! My Garmin didn't register the least bit of a sleep disturbance at 3! What, did the Garmin sleep in as well?

Fortunately, I woke up just after 5. I had my butter brew and got to work. I started my playlist with an earlier song from this Expedition's playlist, the one after the Dust in the Bin session, Running Up That Hill.

Among the thoughts that occurred to me as I trained was how I have limited myself in self-imposed constraints. For example, in the recent past, I set an arbitrary time to make it to the gym each day, thereby short-circuiting the last 2-3 sets of my resistance routine. This has been shored up by my new approach, but nevertheless, I wonder how much of my life is dictated by impetuous confines? Why did I allow 5 AM to be a goal? Why not 5:03 AM or 5:07 AM?

It reminds me of "We can get together and eat a bunch of caramels:"

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It is enabling a system that has no validation. Now, assuming I did not misread it, the upright rows are a good example. I KNOW upright rows are a shoulders' workout (I totally felt them as confirmation) and yet, there I was powering through them because my sheet "told" me to do them on my Back day. I trusted my sheet because I know a lot of prep went into it. Now, I should have verified, but I was in the context of being already well into my training within the backdrop of limited sleep; mistakes happen.

I thought of other things during my workout, the value of visualization mediation of an upcoming session, going through each rep in my mind. While there's the verification which would have been helpful, more importantly, there is research out there that suggests that visualization can build additional muscle mass. There is even research regarding gains with just the mind.

Because the lawnmower's grass hatred of me, I had to extend the workout outdoors. It felt good to be in the rising sun as I shadowboxed, shirt to the side. I got to thinking about how it would be prudent to integrate my TKD/Karate forms in the light, learn Tai Chi and pick up again in my Alaska studies of Baguazhang.

There is great value in soaking in the sunrise.

And what am I left to think? Today, this song was in my ears:

My heart bleeds adrenaline
The fire I breathe is where I live
Say my name, incredible
Say my name, an animal
One life to live
I never give up, I never give in
Some people wanna turn and run
But, the strong rise under the gun