{"id":48430,"date":"2022-02-02T11:40:41","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T16:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48430"},"modified":"2022-02-02T11:40:41","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T16:40:41","slug":"forced-writing-vol-745","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48430","title":{"rendered":"Forced writing, vol. 745"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-39949\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/edwardnortonsleep.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"561\" height=\"229\" srcset=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/edwardnortonsleep.jpg 490w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/edwardnortonsleep-300x122.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 561px) 100vw, 561px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Over the last few weeks, I\u2019ve actually been in an okay rhythm of writing.\u00a0 Between my new job having yet to really pick up steam, leading me to have some occasional downtime, trying to get #2 onto a modicum of a sleep schedule, and the fact that there have actually been numerous things that have piqued my interest to write about, I\u2019ve actually felt satisfied with how much brogging I\u2019ve been able to accomplish lately.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">At this very moment however, I\u2019m in a position where I wish to continue to ride such momentum and keep on writing, however my motivation to write is basically nonexistent today.\u00a0 It\u2019s not for lack of things that I know I could brog about, from the Royal Rumble, a Bengals vs. Rams Super Bowl, Tom Brady\u2019s retirement, or the spoiled surprise of the Washington <span style=\"text-decoration-line: line-through;\">Redskins<\/span> Commanders new team name.\u00a0 Or social commentary about how despite the threat of coronavirus being no lower now than it was two years ago, people are going out and about all the time, and other sicknesses are spreading like wildfires, leading to situations like earlier this week where I had to go two straight days without a nanny, while on the clock, wrangling two kids.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">No, I don\u2019t much feel like writing right now.\u00a0 And I hate to make it seem like I\u2019m never not in a bad place, but right now I\u2019m not in a particularly good place.\u00a0 However, I\u2019ve said it several times in the past, it\u2019s times like this when I don\u2019t feel like writing, is exactly when I should be writing, even if I am forcing it.\u00a0 I have the capacity to do so, and short of dicking around on YouTube or doing surveys on my phone, there\u2019s still no better way to spend available time than writing for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">I just received confirmation from the vet that my dog is very much not a good candidate for surgery, due to the development and spread of cancer in his little body, and at (roughly) 16 years old, it\u2019s probably best to just do whatever necessary to make his life comfortable, but for all intents and purposes, dog has cancer, who knows how much longer there\u2019s left, but it\u2019s probably not much.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019ve touched on it before, but #2 has been regressing hard in terms of sleep, in spite of the training we\u2019ve been trying to implement.\u00a0 For the most part, both of my kids have been polar opposites of each other when it comes to sleeping, and for how great my oldest sleeps, #2 is an absolute nightmare when it comes to the topic of sleep.\u00a0 Over the last few days, she\u2019s been waking up multiple times in the night screaming bloody murder, and nothing short of plowing her with bottle after bottle seems to be capable of bringing her back down and getting her to sleep.\u00a0 For another 54 minutes, before it all seems to repeat itself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Mythical wife and I have been basically getting no more than an hour of sleep at a time before it repeats itself, and it might be just fatigue rate, but seriously, this shit is ruining my life right now.\u00a0 I loathed teething and sleep regressions from my first go-around, but there\u2019s nothing saying we\u2019re not hitting both at the same time with #2, but it absolutely sucks balls, and I can\u2019t even look forward to going to bed anymore, because of the expectation that shit will repeatedly hit the fan while asleep.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">So when baby isn\u2019t sleeping, parents aren\u2019t sleeping, and we\u2019re miserable and ornery and exhausted, more so than when she was a tiny newborn.\u00a0 And this impacts my work life, which is actually now important now that I\u2019m a new guy in a new place, and it\u2019s critical that I make positive first impressions of how hardworking and reliable I am, but I haven\u2019t really been able to, because of kid duties, and I\u2019m concerned about having those that hired me think they got a dud, instead of the stud I know I\u2019m capable of being when I\u2019m normal, engaged and not distracted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Of course, this, like most soul-sucking, sanity-testing tribulations of parenthood, will pass, but it\u2019s just a matter of when.\u00a0 It feels like a speedbump that never will end, and it\u2019s so, so hard on a daily basis to operate in the routine I\u2019m in.\u00a0 It\u2019s a waiting game with no definitive expected target date in sight, and frankly that\u2019s feeling like the case with anything and everything these days.\u00a0 From small shit like waiting for an email response from customer service, to waiting on some merchandise I\u2019m interesting to drop when they said it was going to drop, to bigger things like the aforementioned wait for my daughter to get her sleep shit together so that my household can actually get some rest and improve the quality of our lives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">I am, not in a very good place right now.\u00a0 I\u2019m trying my best to keep my head above water, and trying to find happiness and small wins in the little things, like the explosion of growth and development from my first child, and the general daytime happiness and smiles from #2 at any other time outside of the night when she should be sleeping.\u00a0 But when it comes to the big picture, there are a lot of things that are bogging me down, and I hope that the strings cut and they fall off sooner rather than later, because I\u2019m just so over so much, and I need, just a little bit of time to catch my breath and not feel like I\u2019m so underwater all the time.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the last few weeks, I\u2019ve actually been in an okay rhythm of writing.\u00a0 Between my new job having yet to really pick up steam, leading me to have some occasional downtime, trying to get #2 onto a modicum of a sleep schedule, and the fact that there have actually been numerous things that have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48430\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Forced writing, vol. 745<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,194,193,106,37,192,127],"class_list":["post-48430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-coronavirus","tag-dad","tag-football","tag-job","tag-kids","tag-superb-owl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48431,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48430\/revisions\/48431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}