My mouth still hurts and now my ass does, too.
Not terribly, I’m fine, really. The mouth has healed a lot from the dental visit that turned out to be minor oral surgery. The dentist gave me a warning about this along with potential concerns to look out for, which I really should have written down. Given that I have a bad tendency to ignore pain, it may not have mattered anyway. Well, he said he’d check in with me in a few weeks, so I guess I’ll keep an ear out for that call and ask about it then. As for the ass, I switched up my exercise routine. That included leg day, and that is why my rump is wrecked.
I had been doing squats in the previous routine, and quite a few of them. The old routine was a modified version of Germany Volume Training, but not for gaining muscle volume, rather for using the volume of sets x reps to accelerate progress. It was a 10 x 10 routine, which I thought was pretty brutal, and it gave me the apparently false sense of having bulletproofed my legs. The new routine has about the same volume of squats, but where the previous program was all just standard squats, the new one uses a combo of three types: Goblets, Cassocks, and split squats. That combo absolutely beats the tires off of me. Glutes, quads, hammies, whatever that part in the inner thigh that I didn’t realize was a muscle until it started hurting is, all that stuff. It’s all on fire and also completely stiff. I’m taking this as all good news. For one, I don’t think I could have done a Cassock Squat a few months ago, as I did try to do split squats and failed. For another, I think the soreness is indicative of some gaps my original routine had towards my goals, and while I can’t be sure this has filled them all, I am at least confident that I’ve at least filled some important ones. I’d really like to keep walking around without help as I age.
It’s a 4-Day plan, and I’ve not really had a chance to give it a full test. Hopefully I will in the next few weeks, as I think the power of this is in the full and short cycle. We’ll see how things go.
Also happening right now, the gas is out in my building, which is super fun. My heating is gas, my stove is gas, and my water heater also runs on gas. The condos I’m in have some extremely janky pre-1980s-assed plumbing and electrical systems, so when another unit in my building developed a gas problem, the nature of which I’m unsure of, it meant the gas for the entire building needed to be shut off. Oh, actually, two entire buildings, because the jank means that any one unit’s gas, water, or electrical problems are actually the problems of two entire buildings that share a system, containing at least 24 units. But the lights are still on, the water still runs, and it’s not yet freezing outside, so I’m fine. Though if it doesn’t get fixed soon, I will have to figure out another solution.
It’s mid-November, so the temperature is about to take a dive. It already took one as of today, dropping to the 50s-60s during the day. It’s not quite to freezing at night, but easily could be. With the day time temps as chilly but moderate, that can be solved with a space heater, which I should get if this is expected to last a few more nights. But it prompts my thoughts because as is, freezing showers are a complete no go for me. In my younger days, I was in the military, and cold showers were just a thing you’d sometimes have to do. I’ve also been varying levels of poor which can also come with that price tag. Fast forward to now, if I absolutely need to hop into a cold shower, I’ll do it. But I’m older and more accustomed to a life of comfort, and I have so many other options, it’s neither preferred nor necessary.
For the time being, I have plenty of warm clothes and blankets, many cooking options, and my electric kettle makes bathing in the sink viable for a few days It’s far from my favorite, but works just fine for the weekend+ that I’m hoping this won’t extend past. The timing kind of works out, too, because I needed a little fitness break from apparently overdoing the workout routine turnover. Less sweaty means less shower concern, but if this outage persists into the week, I’ll have to relocate for a while. Honestly, it’s nice to know that I have the options, and maybe a little hotel stay could be fun.
But the thought prompt mentioned earlier stems from the stuff I’ve been thinking and writing about lately. This situation has me thinking what I would do if I were in a relationship. The last time that I was in one, it wasn’t a long or serious enough relationship that we were living together. It did last long enough for both of us to encounter similar needs, easily solved at the time by just staying at the other person’s place for a few nights. So I guess it was fairly serious, now that I look back on it. I personally wouldn’t even consider the option of staying with a romantic interest for more than a night if the relationship wasn’t already fairly far along. It baffles me that I’ve known folks letting new partners stay for longer than one night.
So you’re basically letting a stranger stay for over a week, including when you leave for work, in the place you sleep, shower, and keep your favorite toys? That’s fuckin’ crazy. Have you even known them long enough to figure out if that weird thing about them is actually endearing and not just an obvious red flag? You’ve known this dude for a month and they have family in town and they still needed to move in with you, and that doesn’t seem sus? Just how good is that dick? I guess it must be pretty amazing. Sorry, I’m just remembering two different friends/acquaintances that did exactly this. Both women, both had literally every friend (sex/gender agnostic) in their circles telling them not to do this, and both had the situations end badly. I could never.
If I were in a relationship where we already lived together, I don’t think there would be a question – we’d stay somewhere else. Unless she, like me, is always down to tough it out in favor of some other convenience, I wouldn’t want to even suggest that being cold and smelly is a viable option. Though I guess there would still be a question of where. We’d have to consider money, location, and any other needs. I know plenty of folks that I can ask to stay with and many would be cool with it, though it always makes me feel a little weird. If it weren’t financially or otherwise burdensome, I’d lobby (ha!) for the hotel option 10 out of 10 times. But I’d also be pretty open to her preferred option, because I just can’t see this being a hill I care to die on.
So that’s what’s going on with me this week. Other than that, I want to try to make a strong academic push with what remains of the year. I want to make sure that I finish my current set of classes, and preferably more if I can. I think the English Comp. class should be an easy win, now that I’m starting to get a rhythm for it. If I can, I’ll move right into English Comp. 2 and try to nail that this year as well. I feel the same, individually, about my Stats and Computer Science classes, but the three together reminds me of my time management gaps. I was also hoping to get into Calc I this year, but I think I need to reset my expectations on that. I think it’s possible that I’ll get started on Precalc, but probably won’t finish that before 2026. That’s fine, I want to make sure I give myself time to actually study and understand the material, but I need to keep an eye on the speed of my progress so I can better plan for the future. You know, enrollment, tuition, grants and financial aid, all that stuff. I want to finish quicker than four years, and there are definitely ways to do that, but I’m still skeptical that I have the capacity to do so.
I did finally make it to Week 6 in CS50x, which I’m told is the start of the down hill. I can say this much so far, Python is definitely easier to work with than C. The amount of stuff that I don’t have to worry about in Python is already quite the boon. Hopefully it will continue to feel that way, because I could use some momentum behind this push.