Sunday, January 14, 2024

Hey it's a New Year 2024 and it's time to set some goals!

 January 14, 2024

Instead of starting off that it has been so long since I wrote a blog entry, I will stop and say that it’s good to be back.  2023 was the first full year, living with Meli.  Our relationship is growing, and I am grateful each day that we are together.  Last year, we went to some concerts, Mark Anthony at Prudential. It was the first and last time I saw him.  Juan Louis Guerra at MSG which was a great show, Cheap Trick, Santana, Smithereens, and Duran Duran.  We also went to a Jets preseason game, NASCAR in the Poconos, IronPigs baseball.  Trips to Costa Rica, Mexico City and a week in Maine.  Of course, there were the trips back to Long Island.  We finally saw a CC performance, a drag show.  We went out to dinner many nights and took up hiking, bike riding, joined a gym and have been working out consistently for close to a year.  I ran a half marathon and a 5-miler last month.  I finally got into fly fishing.  We had visits from family and hung out with friends.  My second novel in the Bombastic Adventures in the Arizona Desert trilogy will be published by Imzadi this year.  Last year, an audio book of Black Market Bones was published.  And our home has a new roof and siding and lots of plants and books.  So, that is a brief summary of where we are at.

But this is a time of reflection as well.  And this is where I am.  Yesterday, I had a coaching session with John Joseph, former singer for Cro-Mags, Iron Man, a plant-based guru.  It was an intro session. We need to know we can work together and what was supposed to be a half hour turned out to be close to one hour. I told him, I’d like to get back on task.  My writing time and output has been minimal, and it’s been this way for months.  I get in maybe 10 minutes a night and consolation were that is ten minutes more compared to not writing at all.  Walter Mosely writes every day for hours and I was thinking, so can I.  I used to get up and write before starting my real job.  I finished a novel, not in the trilogy, that takes place in Ireland.  But since my wife is here, life is different.  She likes to have breakfast together each morning.  Most mornings, I clean the dishes, make breakfast, eggs, turkey sausage, we eat together, and I warm up her car and scrape the windows off of any frost.  I used to drive her to work, and I am grateful that she’s driving.  This saves a lot of time.  But what am I doing with the extra time?  I will be honest, not much.

Last year, I made the foolish decision to go back to Facebook.  It’s different compared to when I was on it back in 2017.  There are now reels and there are the same friends who are making the same comments, sharing new pictures, happy for those who are expecting or been promoted or other positive or not - life events which should we shared.  But most of it is whining, political or religious banter, regurgitating of old garage bands, reliving the romantic past, but it was the reels that did me in.  Months later, I got off FB.  It was difficult. There were a few aborted attempts.  It’s been months since I’ve been there.  Formerly Twitter, X was back in my life as well, but again I realized I was in a place that was wasting my time.  It’s taking me away from my goals and I am encountering posts that I don’t need to be exposed to.  It all boils down to time management. 

It is Sunday morning.  I woke up at 5:00.  I want to start waking up earlier, before Meli, so I can write. One of the suggestions John made.  Mission accomplished.  It’s more than two hours since I started and I am happy.  John said many things yesterday and I will hire him for more coaching sessions, but he said, I love what I do.  He also writes and is focused on his projects, meals, workouts, and goals.  I am getting back.  I haven’t had a drink since January 1st.  Meli and I are on the road to transitioning to a plant-based diet.  This year looks like it will be more productive and just think, my phone is tucked away in the drawer to avoid any distractions.

Thank you for reading this,

Mike


 

      











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