We are almost to the 21st Febrehab in history. This one I think is going to be relatively easy. I decided that the only things I'm giving up besides alcohol are caffeine and sugar. There's a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, I am about 8 lbs lighter than average. Turns out 18 months of health issues are a great diet! So I don't really want to lose weight.

Secondly, this year after having my gall bladder out and being advised to avoid fat, and then having a really bad kidney stone and being advised to avoid oxalates, I hired a dietitian. They were covered by my insurance and I figured that would be a lot easier than doing all the research myself and coming up with a new diet plan. I met with a guy on a zoom call and he seemed really knowledgeable. He laid out what he would do in the way of tracking food, balancing macro-nutrients, and increasing calories, protein, and calcium. Turns out I've been under-eating for years, and not getting nearly enough protein. And even though my kidney stone was made of calcium-oxalate, and I was advised to reduce oxalates in my diet, the other thing you can do is INCREASE calcium. Turns out more calcium in your diet binds up the oxalates before they can get to your kidneys.

Then the douche ghosted me. He never delivered a meal plan. He never spent one second thinking about me after our initial meeting. But ... what he did do was make me think, "Oh that's all you were going to do? I can do that." So I built a spreadsheet and started meticulously tracking what I was eating. Then I made minor adjustments to breakfasts, lunches, and dinners until a week of eating balanced everything out. That included having a protein shake every day, since it's nearly impossible to get enough protein without it. We both think we're seeing a change at the gym since we work out consistently, but perhaps were just starving our muscles previously, and now they are able to grow.

So, I don't feel like abandoning my new healthy balanced diet just to deprive myself for a month. This will be an easy Febrehab as a result. It's not without precedent, but they've been getting harder lately. And last year was the 20th anniversary, so I made it especially hard.

Speaking of 20th anniversaries, tomorrow is my 20th anniversary with Daniel. You believe that? I do. Love you, Daniel! Here's to the next 20.

I said before that I had migrated all of my social media content to posts on SideshoViD.com, but that wasn't entirely true. I had not posted any of my Instagram stories. To be honest, that's mostly because I didn't know I could. I thought that once they disappeared they were gone. But the other day I noticed my "Archives" on Instagram had every story I'd ever posted.

They made it basically impossible to access that content from my laptop, but on mobile, there was a button to click to download the photo or video. I was astounded at how quickly videos were downloaded to my phone and then uploaded to my website. They must be compressed or optimized somehow. It was literally as fast as I could click that they were done. As a result, it only took a few evenings sitting on the couch crunching through them to complete 2018-2024.

The cool thing about that is that there was a period of time, a couple of years even, where stories were the sole format I used. I liked that they were more ephemeral, less pressure, and felt more spontaneous or narrative. So now a huge chunk of time from around 2022-2024 that was previously unrepresented has some history here.

I also like that it took the topic tag for "squirrels" from obscurity to #6 most popular topic. Those were the primary years we spent getting to know Muffin and trying to get her to eat out of our hands. So that is all documented now for posterity. She's here right now in fact having a little breakfast before heading out to work. Look for her to pop up a lot more in the This Day In History section! 🐿

Today I came dangerously close to giving up. I have been near starvation for almost 4 days now. The reprieve I keep hoping for is not coming. I read that the first ten days are the worst and I think to myself, there's no way I can do this for ten days. I can't drink any more laxative tea or guzzle salt water at 7am any more. Any time I try to see the finish line, it is so far off that it feels hopeless. I try to just take it one day, one hour, one more commercial break at a time, but I have to admit... my will power is fading. The fact that my misery is self inflicted and could end, well, whenever I want, makes it that much harder to keep going.

I called Matt C■■■■ for some advice. Really, I called to ask him if he thought it would hurt me inside if I ate solid food after only four days of cleansing. After ten days, you should gradually reintroduce solid food, but I thought maybe after four days, I could just have a bowl of cereal and quit this whole insanity. But he reminded me that I'm not supposed to be hungry. If I'm hungry, I can drink more lemonade. And if that doesn't work, I can make some super lemonade with extra syrup. So I went to the kitchen and made myself a few glasses of extra strength lemonade. And I drank them. And the cramp in my stomach went away, my headache went away, my heart palpitations went away. All of this for the first time in four days.

So I've decided to keep going.

I'm not going to lie to you. I can't guarantee a victory on this one. Two weeks was a lofty fucking goal. Ten days would be respectable, but even that seems so far away. For now, I've decided to go one more day. And that is really all I can do. But, I am going to give myself a break and not drink the tea tonight. I was up at 3am involuntarily because of that stuff and I could really use a good nights sleep. Hopefully Josh is right. (Pretty Eyes Josh, not Pretty Sure Josh) Hopefully day five will be that downward slope I've been looking for. Wish me luck.

Ahh, what a week this has been. I haven't been to class all week. I place the blame squarely on jesus. I did make it to yoga today though, because as you all know, I do not miss yoga for any reason. Now I'm back on my signiture couch vegging out. I'm watching T3 again. I watched it last night with Raul, Tommy and David, but we didn't really pay attention. It has been out from Blockbuster for SO long now, but it's on Tommy's account so no worries here. I really should get it back at some point. We also watched Circuit. Believe it or not, I didn't like this movie despite the title. There wasn't one integrated circuit, resistive network, soldering iron, or pc board in the entire movie.

Today after yoga this girl came up to me and said, 'Hey do you ever hang out at Revolutions.' And by god, I do. She said she recognized my hair from the other weekend and wanted to tell me that she liked it. I hawked it today for the first time since the bleach incident. I've been kind of scared to put a flat iron to it in fear that it would just melt off.

Since the incident I've been doing just about everything I can to get my hair back to ... well, hair status. First I bought some shampoo and conditioner specifically designed for bleached, fried hair. That's helping a little bit. Then I did a protein pack on it, that was really good, I might need to buy a couple more of those. Finally, I got some Infusium leave in conditioner. All of this together, Pesci willing, will give me back the hair I once had. Wish me luck, have-nots. Back to T3...