lordy, lordy, look who is one year older than he was before
Sorry this is a little late. I straight up forgot!
I’m 40
I’ve done it. Forty revolutions around the sun. Fun fact: the year I was born, 1983, was the year the military began the split from ARPANET (the proto-internet), making their own network and leaving ARPANET for educational and public use. 1983 was also the first year the TCP/IP protocol was standardized within ARPANET, creating what is essentially the internet. What I’m trying to say is: if I was never born there would be no internet. I know that doesn’t sound true, but just think about it for a bit. Just … take some time with it, okay?
I never thought I’d be 40. I don’t mean I was planning on dying before 40, I just mean that my brain has yet to truly comprehend what it means to spend four decades with consciousness. Before 1983 there was no me. And now not only is there me, there’s four decades of me! Yikes! I have memories and shit! Memories of stuff—and things!
My 30s were definitely the hardest decade. Living in Portland, away from the majority of my family (and then, eventually, away from all of my family when my brother moved away), has been tough. There are countless videos from people in their 30s who will tell you that your 30s suck so I won’t belabor the point. What I will say is this: I am privileged to be in a position where I was able to have a lifejacket, so to speak, keeping me afloat for the past ten+ years. Therapy, meditation, and exercise helped in the early years, but it’s only within the past couple of years that I realized that a lot of my mental health is in my gut. This isn’t me telling you to go vegan or to do a detox,1 this is me telling you to maybe take a multivitamin or an iron supplement or vitamin D,2 or just get some healthier foods in your gut, if you can. I had a brain fog for years that would not let up and then one day I had a bunch of good quality meats at a Brazilian grill and I felt better almost instantly. I don’t think the meats were curing me, I think that I was getting some nutrient(s) that I wasn’t getting before. That’s all I’m saying.
Also, like, eat an orange. Oranges are so good!
Anyway, I’m 40 and I feel basically the same. The only thing that’s really weird about it is that sometimes I remember something from high school and it feels like it was two or three years ago but no, it was 22-26 years ago. Also I am like 50x more invested in my bowel movements than I was ten years ago.
Instagram is Just Sex Now
Is anyone else’s IG explore feed just 95% hot people? Look, I know I’m single and I enjoy a good attractive woman ogle every once in a while but it feels like IG is trying to mainline hot women into my veins lately.
It almost makes me miss TikTok. At least with TikTok I would get some educational and informational videos among the women. My explore feed is this:
muscle girls being hot
hot girls being hot
POWER RANGERS (I don’t know why!)
clips of the lead singer from Paramore even though I’ve never listened to Paramore or really even looked up this girl
clips from podcasts with porn stars where the porn star is talking about sex work and/or a disgusting thing, which can be interesting but the hosts are usually these 20 year old dudes and it feels like they’re 30 seconds away from jerking off right then and there
star wars shit, obviously
legos, occasionally
swimming girls being hot, apparently IG thinks I’m really into that
3like, people with star wars opinions, not about the series as a whole but you know, water cooler type shit about what type of Crocs Moff Gideon would wear
memes of course
medical infograph-esque posts that I very much did not ask for
fan pages for stuff that i like but don’t like enough to want to look at a fan page for (coughcriticalrolecough)
oh and also running stuff, remember, that thing I talk about incessantly?
Thankfully it is no longer suggesting dental videos, popping/surgical videos, or videos of guys from India getting shaves. I get it, it’s promoting stuff that I’m more likely to tap on, but knowing that I’m more likely to tap on these things is kind of depressing? I certainly don’t feel great tapping on the nth video of a scantily clad woman gyrating her hips to a sped up version of “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not objecting to people being hot, but there’s just so much of it these days. Everyone’s hot! Everyone has an OnlyFans! It’s just a lot of hotness. I feel like 400 years ago you were lucky if you saw one hot person your entire life, and it was Helen of Troy, and a war was fought over her. Now I see 50 hot women in six seconds of scrolling. We’re not evolved enough for this!
Oh Christ I Ran a Bunch Again
Ha, bet you thought this would be a birthday extravaganza issue, but no, I did THREE 5ks since last we met. I don’t even care about my birthday anymore, all I care about is Run.
The theme of these 5ks is “Josh Needs to Stop Running for A Bit and Heal Up.”
Cinco de Mayo
Blog post. Ran on May 6th, which still aggravates me. Time was 36:20. Ran slower because my achilles tendon was hurting [note: this is foreshadowing], but this was a nice race at a lovely section of Milwaukie, OR, which I had never really been to before. It’s nice!
P&R: Fernhill Park
Blog post. Walked on May 7th. Portland Parks & Rec puts on a 5k every month from May to September. So I signed up for all of ‘em and got a dang ol’ t-shirt too. This was the day after the Cinco de Mayo run, so I ended up walking it instead of running to spare my achilles [note: this is also foreshadowing]. Fernhill Park is lovely.
Pacific Coast
Blog post. Ran/hobbled on May 14th. This one was kind of shit. Which sucks because it was my little birthday weekend getaway! Long Beach is a cute coastal town and the event was fine, and I got some salt water taffy and saw the ocean, but I was way more dehydrated than I realized on race day and I got a bit off track and then pulled my achilles in the final sprint to the finish, which boy oh boy hurt a lot. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Scared me that I might’ve torn something (maybe I did) but the pain subsided a lot after I stopped, and now it feels kind of like when a charley horse subsides and your muscle is just sore as hell. So it could just be a muscle strain instead, I dunno.
My next race isn’t for another three weeks. It’s the Starlight Run, which is a fun run so I will be taking it VERY easy. Then it’s the Redmond Run and then, trumpet fanfare, it’s my Foot Traffic Flat 10k. The thing I’ve been training for this entire time. So, I really ought to let my achilles heal up first.
A Thing for You
So, I think said last issue that I’m big into vlogs now, and I’ve been watching Caroline Winkler’s YouTube channel recently. I think I enjoy her channel because she used to be an actress and so I dig the vibe. She’s also one of those people who’s like “I’m not rich” but I’m looking at her family and she just feels rich, you know? It’s that east coast money thing. Anyway, I’m not one of those people who feels the need to dive into past videos for a channel, but my YT feed has been just awful lately and it kept bumping this video and so I watched it and I really enjoyed it! It’s just Caroline talking about life, really, and explaining what feels like a more nuanced take on “fake it til you make it.” Was an inspiring watch, to say the least.
The End
When next we meet, I won’t have any 5ks to talk about. Aren’t you excited? Instead I will probably talk too much about the new Zelda game. Until then!
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