The things you learn while preparing for a hurricane in upstate NY

"Find what you love and let it kill you." - Charles Bukowski 

I’m talking about “something’s” again, mostly because I find this disturbing in my day to day. Doing something, and even doing something which my brain dubs as “super good”, and further recognizing that something is ultimately worth it, more often than not isn’t enough of a catalyst to encourage my brain to repeat doing it. However, for some reason this theory doesn’t imply to the things that keep me in trouble, like drinking, eating garbage, smoking, etc. 

I have a ton of shit I could speak on but easiest and my latest example is exercise. I just started exercising back in June or July. I have increased how serious I’m taking it since starting, which has resulted in about four hundred plus changes. But, being four or five months in now, I have established one fundamental fact. Man, do I feel good when I work out. And, I’ll clarify a little further. I mean it just feels awesome when I can get a full productive workout in and don’t cause some dumb injury like a herniated disc, or a less dumb one like a broken rib. (both have happened so far) I get a sense of accomplishment, I compete with the imaginary better version of myself, hell, I even test my own limits when I haven’t set any goals.  It’s the perfect situation filled with excitement, self-encouragement, and occasionally some results. So you would believe that I would be embracing all of this, just jumping out of bed in the morning to run to the gym and pump. Unfortunately I think this where the scumbag corner of the brain gets involved, and I am more likely to concede to lethargy, or apathy. Based on the obesity rates in this country, I assume it’s not just me.

This also translates to everything else I do in my life. It’s like I work on some opposite set of endorphins that get off on not doing anything of value or anything at all. Some people get that adrenaline rush when jump off a mountain, I apparently have it when I am sitting. Sitting anywhere. 

So, I decided something in the rebirth of this writing thing.  As you saw in the last post (here) that the great point of all of this is to challenge the status quo which my life has become and push to define the limits of my existence. Sounds fucking deep right. Well the shit just got real, because after that post a hurricane was to come through town and I got me beer’d up and ready to go. My first test.

It's bigger than I was expecting

I took Monday to prepare for the storm, buy supplies, brew a batch of beer, and slow cook a chicken for 8 hours. I also took some time to evaluate my workout regimen and try to figure out what the fuck it’s about.  Was it because my triglycerides a “way high”? Was it to be generally healthier? Or was it for an unidentified reason?

If you guessed the latter, or an unidentified reason then you guessed it, it literally was that.  But then, into my fifth beer or so my epiphany for the day came, and figured a few truth’s out about where I have been since June and where I need to go from here.

1. I don’t know shit about this exercise thing and never took the time to learn.

2. Breaking my ribs and blowing out my back sucked.

3. The events mentioned in number 2 likely took place because of a combination of number 1 and the fact that I read the internet for advice on the subject. God damned Reddit.

4. You have to sacrifice something to be astatically pleasing, and or big at the same time. One isn’t easily achievable at the same time as the other, and it all takes time and patience to achieve.

5. I really want to lift a ton of weight. Like an absurd number in every lift. Something I can’t do now.

6. I watched the Avengers which further cemented that the Hulk is my favorite.

Number 5 did it. Number 6 drove it home.  Are you serious? I can check most of my boxes off while heeding the doctor’s advice, I can also eat well and in excess (feeding my glutton) while get muscularly larger and getting stronger. Sign me the fuck up!

My Little Pony is about as Beast Mode as I can get yet.

 Before we go into New Year’s resolution mode, or as I like to call it, Born to fail mode. Let me lay down some ground work.  I’ve been on this, I’ve been on this for about 5 months, and although it’s kind of still new, it’s not really new. I’ve also been doing this without a point.  Drifting in the workout wind and now, I have made one.  So today I started, or restarted this whole deal, I didn’t bullshit myself by starting the next sentence with something stupid like. “Monday, I’m going to…” or “I should”. I went and did it. I built me a little program based on some tried and true shit. We’re going to see what works, and what doesn’t because I am done with the bro-science and the one size fits all programming.  High level, here’s the plan in order of execution. Step one: Go to gym. Step two: Lift the heaviest shit I can in big multi joint movements. Step three: Repeat.  The variables to this here formula are how much food I can pound a day, how much daily pain I can tolerate, that mind fucking myself or general pussiness isn’t an allowable option, and the first goal is just that. The first of what needs to be many.

The first goal, hit 900 pounds in the big three. To someone experienced this is shit, especially to someone at 204 pounds in body weight. To someone new, such as me this can seem impossible. But now that it’s written down, I have to do it. This is the power of spilling my guts on the internets…

Today’s little workout wasn’t bad. Worked a lot of form and low reps. I also didn’t pull any max attempts. I have some form issues to work through before I get heavy. I got to laugh at Mr. Strongfat pulling 195 like his arms were coming off. I thought of trying the Jamie Lewis approach and was going to Alpha the shit out of him, but me showing off pulling 250 sounded fucking retarded. I pulled it, but not to be impressive, just to get it done.  This isn’t going to be my normal work day but I needed to get going on something and as I mentioned, I needed the form work in the worst way.

Back Squats – Low Bar - 45x5, 45x5, 85x5, 125x3, 160x2, 200x5, 200x5, 200x5

Bench Press – Medium Grip - 45x5,45x5,75x5,105x3,135x2,165x5,165x5,165x5

Leg Press - 320x8, 330x8, 350x8, 365x8

Barbell Deadlift - 135x5, 200x3, 225x2, 250x5

Please pay no attention to the Rippetoe overtones in here.

What is this fucking math class? Just squat until you can't

I’ll post my normal work days up here soon, after I lock it in. This week is going to be a jumble and a testing on a few theories.  Kind of want to see how things feel using some training ideologies that have been posed by a few blogs. One I read quite often, and with Lewis’ aforementioned blog it’s what I feel to be the top of the top shelf, that’s this one (Lift-Run-Bang). The other re ally seems like a filler piece on a shit supplement marketing website/forum, but the message for this post is spread out over a wide enough plain I almost agree with what’s being said. That one is here (Max Out on Squats Every Day).

I know, I’m coming off like my opinion is esteemed, but fuck it, it’s my show here.

It's the first time in a while that I know what I'm doing

I had intentions on making this blog more relative to something. The trouble with something’s are that they are generally under defined, and more often than not, those something’s are undefined and indefinable. Was it a business that I had only partially started? Or perhaps it was a lifestyle and image that I wanted to portray.  Because you see I thought for the longest time that if I mimicked the actions of other successful people, groups and what have you, it would translate into some form of that same success.  Without any doubt this makes me a fucking poser, and not just any type of poser.  A poser in its truest form. Before you read too far into this, or get the feeling that there is some ominous tone in this post.  Let me be perfectly clear... this is the single most enthusiastic realization I could have ever had! Ever.

That's why we are here again today. Key word is again.  Oh I will offer a ton of FYI on this little spill-my-guts-athon, and the first shouldn't be a giant surprise in context to my little cryptogram two sentences back.

FYI #1: I have been here before. Eager. Hungry. Ready to be honest and ready to write my story for the world to see. FYI #2: This usually will get about two or three posts deep before I forget what I am doing and why the hell I may be doing it. We can start here. Or can we? I guess I should go further in considering nobody knows who I am or anything about me. This may take a few minutes...At least on my end.  You can skip ahead to the part where I don't come across as a creep if you like.

The name is Brett Goodman. I would love to give you the 15th Century rundown of ancestors, like son of Gary, grandson of Dewey, great grandson of Claude, etc. etc. but it would really just sound cooler than it is. Those introductions sounded way bad-ass in my opinion and the motherfuckers giving them usually had swords. I don’t have a sword so we will have to do with the match.com version. I was born in a small town in way northern NY about 30 miles from the Canadian border, and I have surrounded myself with idiots and stupidity ever since.

The purple dot is home, or what used to be.

I'll continue but be warned, I fully plan to summarize this part because it somewhat depressing, and I would prefer to get the point across quick and move on. Here we go. My parents were too young for kids, too stupid for their own good, and too broken as individuals to live without each other. Some equate this to love. I equate it to the perfect recipe for building misguided adults. I have a sister who is great, but who is also equally as fucked as I am. We grew up very lower middle class in a trailer which was once my Grandfather on my Mother’s side situated next door to a smaller trailer owned by my Great Grandmother. My father was a paper mill roustabout turned failed entrepreneur, turned salesperson, turned statistic for the American Heart Association. He could kick a football a mile and he could feel sorry for himself every step of the walk to go pick that ball up.  However, he couldn't teach his kids shit about anything useful, but everyone still loved him. My mother worked at the local Savings & Loan, and was a horrible, horrible selfish person. A skill she continues to master today from a bed in a nursing home. She developed MS when I was 10 or 11 and made sure to hold it against everyone while reminding them of how bad and unfair her life was. As you can see, at least from a high level I hold some contemptuous feelings on this particular topic. Nevertheless, let’s get back to our introduction to me. I’ll further summarize for the sake of time and the lack of brown alcohol on this table.

Youth: I was a Catholic school troublemaker with undiagnosed ADHD (we didn’t have that then). I was the boy that was full of excuses, and full of unharnessed potential. I was constantly told how very intelligent I was, and how undisciplined I was in the same sentence. I was quiet, but I also believed that I was always on the verge of saying too much.

Touched

Teen Years: I wasn’t exactly sure what I was. What teenager really does? I’ll elaborate as this is a trait which has carried over to my life today. I built situational based bravados and personas. I became who I needed to be in any situation rather than ever learning to be myself at any time. If I was with black kids, I was black, Stoners, I was stoned, if I was with Jocks, I was an asshole.  You get it. Otherwise I was your typical teenager in most every other way. I resented the folks, couldn’t do enough to please the old man, and was in constant competition with everyone, even when they weren’t aware that there was a competition being held. I continued doing just enough to not get noticed either for the good or the bad.  I had no goals, no aspirations and didn’t give a shit about where I was going or what I wanted to become.  I wanted to talk, not act.

It was 1992 Son

Post Teen, Early adult years: These years are generally cloudy for everyone. You know what I mean, that state of heightened awareness, learning what you actually are, and where you will go with your life, while mostly drunk. It’s a peculiar and interesting time for most people, retrospectively mine was no exception. It was interesting, but mostly because I found out what kind of creepy shit I was really capable of, stretched out over roughly 12 years. Oh, and that, my post teen, early adult years lasted so long that I can remember almost every incident and indiscretion to great detail. I’m not self-loathing, but here is where I learned to lie, steal, deceive, cheat, fuck people over & pay absolutely no attention to any repercussions because they never seemed to come my way. I’m not going into details here but family members, employers, business partners, and strangers alike all fell victim to my schemes. I stopped acting in such a manner when I turned 33-34ish. I burned some bridges along the way, quite a few I didn’t ever want to travel across again, some I wish I wouldn’t have. I married young. Too young. As you can probably guess ended it badly. I believe that this is the way most young marriages end or just most things in general when they do end. Badly. I had two kids, a boy and a girl, who are amazing and remind me daily that life is good and pure when you look through the right set of eyes. Earlier I mentioned that my parents weren’t able to teach my sister and I much about anything. They got one lesson down pat. How not to parent children. In a way, it’s the best thing I have ever learned.

A common pose for the era

I took jobs I hated, because I never knew what I wanted to be. Fuck, for the most part I still don’t. Here’s a short list of shit I’ve done it’s even exhausting to look at. Grocery store bag boy, cook, pizza delivery boy, furniture salesman, computer salesman, construction worker, painter, U.S. Navy seaman, car salesman, chemical technician/salesperson, box mill worker, auto mechanic, entrepreneur, web site/graphic designer, auto service manager, sales manager.

I went to several colleges for several disciplines, and have mastered none, yet I have a massive bill monthly to remind me of this. A short dossier of my general education includes Bio-Chemistry, Business Administration, Liberal Arts, Accounting, and Keynesian Economics.

I have been an avid alcohol consumer (bordering on alcoholism, I even put myself in a program. Perhaps in another post), smoked about a pack a day for nearly 17 years, and I ate like a pig with little respect for the effects on my body. Somewhere and it has only happened fairly recently, I began to move past all of this.  I learned to balance a check book, I decided paying my bills is better than not, and I am actually worried about my credit score. I have also decided that in the finite timeframe that I walk this earth, being an asshole isn’t an attributable or desirable quality.  Although I will forever be embedded with the Asshole gene, I am learning how and when to use it. Enter…modern day Goodman.

Modern Day Goodman: Post the divorce, I met the person I feel I was meant to meet. She is the type of person who will challenge me to be at my best at all times without any condescending tone. She is why I am writing this, and why I have begun this exercise in self-exploration and self-preservation, ultimately she is why I have existentialist type dilemmas and I just want to question WHY? To everything. Oops, I guess before I get ahead of myself, I have to add a couple of disclaimers here. I am in no way “fixed” nor do I assume that I am fixable. Nobody usually is unless they want to be. That’s the point of this whole writing deal. The second thing is, that I don’t want to give the impression that this person had complete control to turn my life around. I am pretty big on personal responsibility over fates or deities. This was on me and it was likely just the influence or presence of this lady that led me to this path. Moving forward I’m going to probably leave her out of a lot of this as it might just cause unnecessary distractions.

Philosophizing (A real word)

I had a pretty gross realization a few days ago that I haven’t ever done anything to success that I truly enjoy. I mean REALLY enjoy. No hobbies, no passions, fuck, I mean nothing. I like doing some things, but I tend to only touch on them, and generally not very well. Again just well enough to get by.  I cook, I like to work out, hell, I like to sit in fucking chairs. But do I know I love to do any of this shit? No.  Well maybe. I plan on working this stuff in as it is a real part of my day to day, but the meat and the core for this jumbled up half broken English nightmare is going to come from some new stuff I am going to try. Because, “Why the fuck not”?

Now we’re here. What to do next?

*Another disclaimer – I still like to eat like a pig, and like to drink like a Viking. Expect pictures of both and the occasional diatribe regarding what I consider excellent choices in both the mediums. I might also write in a bunch a shit about weightlifting. I get excited sometimes about retarded stuff. If you don’t like it fast forward to the next episode.