Awesomeness

Let's start with something positive. I'm happy to say that I'm actually doing well. No really! I think the funk is coming to an end. I've noticed that it's extremely rare that my emotions pull me down and keep me there anymore. My days fluctuate now between bright and neutral, and I couldn't be more happy about that. It's really nice to feel the weight of depression lifting off of my chest.

I think my last post, which was very negative, was a very telling sign. The fact that I was able to even be frustrated with my depressive state told me that there was a light ahead. I wondered shortly after posting it if things were almost over. Seems that thought was correct. I'm not going to say I'm 100 percent all good now, because that could be premature. There's still a lot of things that have yet to happen. I have a house to sell with the ex, and who knows what that might dredge up emotionally for me. Thankfully that's not going to happen for a few more months yet, which should provide me ample time to be even more healthy. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Either way, right now I'm feeling good.

Allergies

I've never had allergies. I've always given my sympathy to those that do have them. I hate having colds and seasonal allergies seem like an unending cold. However, that may be changing. Anyone can develop an allergy at any age. What I've noticed between this year and starting last year, sometimes during the spring I get a random sore throat. I've had the thought several times "am I getting sick?", but then it goes away and I'm fine. My experience this year was stronger than last year, which makes me wonder if I'm developing an allergy to tree pollen. That kind of sucks, but given the fact that I have no others that I'm aware of, I'm ok with it.

Biking

I've given thought to being more physically active, and every time I have that thought, I suppress it. Why? Cause I'm lazy, that's why. I've never been fond of working out. That burn that some people really crave is something I have always hated. Still, the older I get, the more I realize I need to be more active. I've had a bike since I went to college back in 1999, and the bike is in decent shape. I've given thought to trading it in and getting something a bit nicer. It's nothing special...just a plain old mountain bike, though a decent brand. It's a Trek. However, I came to the conclusion that maybe I should see if I use it enough to make it worth buying a new bike rather than just going out and spending the money. So I decided to take my bike in and get it tuned up. It's seriously looking great now. In fact, I got new tires and grips while I was at it. It's like new.

So, on Saturday, I decided to go for a bike ride. It was the first bike ride I'd taken in probably 4 years...maybe 5. Seriously, I probably was living in Chippewa Falls when I last rode my bike. It's really been a long time. Anyway, it was great! The bike trail system in the Des Moines area is fantastic. I ended up on a whim going for a two hour bike ride and rode 11.5 miles. Surprisingly I'm not sore at all. That kind of shocked me because there were some hills on that ride. I think I know why though. I'll share more on that shortly. I did take my camera with, and while I didn't take many photos, I did snap a few that I liked. I posted them on my Flickr if you want to check them out.

I'm hoping to make the biking a regular thing. I really enjoyed getting out there and seeing some areas I hadn't been to before. It was really refreshing, and it totally reminded me of home. My parents live near a state forest, and I used to ride my bike through there all the time as a kid. I look forward to more of it.

Go Karting

This past week, one of my coworkers invited a bunch of us to go to a new go kart track in Des Moines. It was the first time I've been to a track that involves signing a waiver, wearing a head sock, and wearing a helmet. These karts go pretty fast. Apparently if they have a long enough straightaway, they can get up to the 40 mph range. This particular track has a lot of turns. So, that 40 mpg is a little bit too hard to reach, but you can still get going at a pretty fast pace.

Out of the 9 people that went, I came in second. I can't complain about that. The coworker that came in first cheated a little. He went the night before and went on about 5 races that were 10 laps each. The rest of us were completely green to these karts and this track. So he had a bit of an unfair advantage. Do you see me making excuses? I do. Haha. Regardless I had fun.

However, remember how I said I didn't get sore from the biking? Well, I think it's because I got extremely sore from the karting. Apparently going that fast makes me, and a number of the other racers, rather tense. The day after, a good portion of my body was sore from my shoulders, arms and down to my lower back. Regrets? None...but ouch. Not only was I sore, I had bruises on my hips from sliding around in the seat and on my right knee from hitting the steering column. That's what I call fun though!

Night of Terror

To contrast that, I had a night of pure terror recently. It's spring, which means thunderstorms, and now that I'm in Iowa, there's greater risk of tornadoes. A few weeks ago on a Sunday night, there was a severe thunderstorm heading through the DSM area. I knew it was coming, but I didn't realize it was a supercell storm. At about 10:30, the sirens went off.

One important thing to note, in Wisconsin the sirens get set off all the time. Strong winds? Sirens. Rain? Sirens. Tornado? Sirens. Santa Claus? Sirens. I'm exaggerating a little, but they do set them off a lot, and there tends to be a bit of a "boy who cried wolf" effect. I never knew if I needed to take cover because a tornado was coming or if it was just another lightning storm. Here in Iowa, there are two reasons they set them off...ok three. Tornadoes, extremely high winds, and air raids. So, when the sirens went off...I kind of freaked out. And by kind of...I mean I totally freaked out.

I have no basement. When I lived in El Paso, I also had no basement, but they don't get tornadoes there. So it wasn't a huge deal at all. Here, it's a huge deal. I really wasn't sure what to do. I ended up failing to rally the cats into the downstairs bathroom, grabbing a blanket to throw over me, and hoping for the best. Even worse, when I looked at the news reports, I was essentially in the direct path of where the worst of it was headed. Reports were talking about a wall cloud headed my direction.

I was doing the stupid thing and looking out the window at the clouds, and I saw the wall cloud. The good news is that no tornado spawned from the cloud. So, I survive to live another day. However, it took me hours to come down off of the fight or flight adrenaline rush. I ended up not being able to fall asleep until around 1:00 am, which made Monday at work really rough. Still, I'll take a rough Monday to a tornado any day.

Match

The more time I've had an account on Match.com, the better it's been going. I've been getting a lot of positive attention on there. Several ladies have asked me out, which is nice. I'm starting to feel like I'm ready to start going out now. Sometimes I even think about heading to the local LGBT bar scene, but let's not get too carried away. Anyway, I'm really feeling pretty good about it. It's helping me feel attractive again, which is something I need since my confidence has been so low.

There are things I've definitely learned from it. I've noticed that there are some ladies that will send single line messages and immediately want to start texting and sharing phone numbers. I'm very hesitant with those. I'm much more interested in getting to know a person a bit more before that. I can tell a lot about a person through how and what they write. I'm very attracted to intelligence, and if a person can write about their thoughts in a coherent manner, that's more interesting to me than whether someone is super physically attractive and isn't willing to write anything.

Either way, I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm ready to start going out and meeting some ladies, and that makes me happy.

Gaming and Twitch

I've been playing a lot of Borderlands 2 lately. I played a bit of the first one back when I lived in El Paso, but I never got into it all that much. However, the second one is great. The writing is fantastic, and the gameplay is a lot of fun. I'm already dropped about 45 hours of my life into the game, and it appears that's going to continue. I'm not complaining though. It's been really enjoyable. One of the things I really like about it is that up to four people can play at a given time, and friends on Steam can just drop in if they like. So I've had a few impromptu multiplayer sessions that have been great.

On top of that, I discovered that my video card drivers have support built in for Twitch streaming. So, I've started streaming my gameplay here and there. It's a weird way of being social and not social at the same time. The strangest thing to me is the lack of audio from everyone watching the stream. I'll have a transparent chat window overlaying my gaming. So I can see if people write things, but I can't hear them. So it feels like talking to myself while I game. Still, it's pretty fun, and I'll likely continue doing it. Maybe I'll set up a regular night that I Twitch stream...and then promptly never follow through, much like my "weekly" Jessica the Nerd videos. Ha!

Speaking of which, my twitch handle is jessicathenerd. Watch my twitter / facebook / Google+ for announcements on when I am streaming.

Temporary Roommate

A friend of mine was going through some serious relationship stuff recently, and she needed to get out of her living situation. I'm very sympathetic to someone going through the kinds of things she was dealing with, and I figured that I have a guest room that's just a storage area for me. So I offered it to her. She's been hanging out here for about a week now, and it's been good. Honestly, I think I needed a roommate after all this time alone. It's been nice to have someone to chat with, to share meals with, and watch stuff with. Plus, it feels good to help someone in need.

She's in the process of getting back on her feet, and when she does, she'll be finding a place for herself. In the meantime, my lease is up in a couple months, and I'm going to start looking for a place that's closer to work. So I'm going to spend some time on Craigslist searching for something that fits the bill for me. I'm hoping for either a standalone house, a side by side duplex, or a condo townhome that is affordable. My place right now is really expensive, and I'm hoping to cut that cost quite a bit. Around here it'd be cheaper to own, but I've already made that mistake once, and I'm not doing it again. Renting is the way to go for me right now.

Productivity

I'm hoping to start making some schedules for my life soon. I've had a lot of ideas for projects, like my Jessica the Nerd website, a few video projects, and what not. I'd really like to start scheduling and setting aside some time to actually work on them. I think if I do that, and each week...maybe Tuesday or something, I go to a coffee shop after work, I'll spend a few hours working and being productive on personal projects. From there I'll be able to actually make those projects a success.

What do you think? Is that a good plan? How do you stay productive on personal stuff without letting yourself get distracted by laziness? Let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading and being awesome people. Live long and Awesome!