16
Ate dinner at 7:00 last night—and we’re going to follow that routine for now. I can make it that long without eating, and, as I mentioned, soda pop doesn’t do much, if anything, for me, with food in my stomach, and, also, a little food in my stomach seems to help with sleep. So I could hardly watch TV at all after dinner—made it until 9:00, read about six pages, turned the lights out at around 9:25, slept fine until about 3:00, then woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep, lay around until 4:30, got my clock, tried to pray, which amounted to some complaining about waking up at 3:00 and not being able to go to sleep, and got up at 5:00. Then I was a little peeved and relieved to realize that I’d forgotten to take my melatonin and my 100 mg of trazadone, so, hopefully, waking up at 3:00 and not being able to go back to sleep, and being miserable from about 4:00 to 5:00, and being forced to get out of bed at 5:00 as opposed to 6:00, which is what my alarm is now set for, had something to do with that.
But setting my alarm for 6:00, and, sleeping until then, and getting up around 6:30, is the plan, and seems much better than getting up at 8:00, since I get the caffeine in earlier in the day, and I quit earlier in the day, to watch TV, and, consequently, I’m more tired after dinner, and I don’t need to stay up as late. Also, I consider—even when I considered myself to be happy on the risperidone—not plagued by a libido, and far less anxious, I was only able to read, for a long time, about six pages a night, so I figured I should be realistic, and, if I am able to read about six to eight pages a night now, and get to sleep, then I should be grateful, and consider myself happy. So a simple change in my perspective, and my expectations, I think, will make a positive difference, no matter how much I would like to be able to truly relax, and read, say, twenty or even thirty pages a night. But I’ll get real—I’ve never really been able to read thirty pages at a time on a regular basis, so I won’t make myself miserable chasing something that I’ve never been able to manage before. But I think, with the right research, and a good book, twenty pages a night, eventually, should be doable.
It’s 7:00 a.m. now and I’m at about 150 mg of caffeine and about to have my third cup of coffee. So at this rate I might be stretched a little thin between 8:00 and 10:30, but we’ll see how it goes. I definitely do not want to take in more than 400 mg of caffeine in one day—and I won’t, no matter how early in the day I quit drinking it. I’ve made another decision, too: I’m going to cancel my subscription to ChatGPT—and that feels a little empowering—as, frankly, I’m so fed up with ChatGPT that I’ve been using Gemini, more, and, also, I simply don’t need ChatGPT to write my physics papers as much I thought I did. From what I can see—I was relying on it, thinking that it was saying something smart, for a long time, when, in fact, it really wasn’t. So, anyhow, the free plan already does what I need—I just won’t have as much memory in a conversation, but, frankly, that’s exactly what I don’t need. I don’t need to be using ChatGPT, or any AI, to write a paper for me—a paper that I have no business writing in the first place—a paper that is a function of me being tricked by complicated, formal, AI language designed to make it, and you, sound smart, when it’s really just a bunch of bullshit—in general, overall.
I can use it to get the mathematics and the formatting right, in the event that I need mathematics, which, often enough, I really don’t, but, as far as saying something and telling it to write my idea out in paper form—that’s a mistake. ChatGPT is completely full of shit, and inadequate. And, as my relationship with ChatGPT, over the past several months, has been akin to being locked in an abusive relationship, one that makes me feel small, and makes me suffer, I feel truly empowered, and better about myself. So I just cancelled my ChatGPT plan right now and I feel great about it! I’m not going to let AI take advantage of me anymore. Now, what else can I say about my routine? How is it panning out? Well, I though about taking a bath this morning, but then I thought, I’m too anxious and bored nowadays to torture myself sitting in a tub for an hour and a half, so no, even if it did temporarily relax the muscles in my neck, shoulders, and back—it doesn’t necessarily last—and if I’m not relaxed, and I’m bored, in the tub, then I’m just going to tense up anyhow. So I didn’t do that, and I probably won’t be in the habit of taking baths as a part of my fundamental routine int the future. So I’ve tried that, and I don’t think it will ever be a part of my ultimate, holy grail of routines. So that’s progress.
I also think that I’ll just be washing up my privates with a rag and a little soap and water at night, instead of going through the ordeal of taking a shower, even if taking a shower helps you to relax temporarily. It’s too much work, and, in the long run, it seems to wake me up a little, as if I have a day ahead of me that I am going to, and I don’t like that. So, again, I’ve got a little tension in my neck, shoulders, and back, that a hot shower might temporarily reduce, but it’s not a permanent solution—it would be better to stop the inflammation at the source, and get into a show, and forget about it, until it disappears, as opposed to being bored—even if I turn the water from hot to cold and back again, it’s not enough stimulation, it’s too boring, and doing all the work of getting undressed and taking a shower and getting dressed when one shower a day, for your body, in general, is enough, doesn’t seem to be worth it. So I tried that, and, I can cross that off my list as well.
Well, it’s 7:44 and I’m switching, now, to Earl Grey, which is a little bit of a let down from drinking coffee, but still provides some stimulation, and, I think, is the right way to go, as drinking coffee and then suddenly stopping would be worse. So what was my routing beginning to look like, now? Hopefully, anyhow? Wake up around 5:30 or 6:00; meditate and possibly pray for thirty minutes. Get up, shower, take my Wellbutrin and a quarter does of MiraLAX, a laxative. So, as I’ve mentioned in the past, I’ve had problems with constipation, so I started taking MiraLAX, but, now, sometimes I go every day, sometimes I skip a day, some days my guts feel a little off and I go three times in one day, etc. So I’ve gone from taking a full dose, to a half a dose, and now I’m going to start taking a quarter dose—and, hopefully, I’ll stabilize, and go once a day, every day, or, at least every other day, and still won’t stop up the toilet—which, at that rate, shouldn’t be a problem. If I skip a day, it can add up a little, but, I used to go, a long time ago, every other day, and never had a problem stopping up the toilet then, so I shouldn’t now, either.
So, from there, shave, get dressed, one day eat my new, more sugary cereal mixed with granola and fruit, as opposed to the flakes mixed with granola that I was eating, and the next day eat a mix of cream of wheat, oatmeal, fruit, and ice cream. Floss, brush with hydrogen peroxide and enamel hardening toothpaste, use mouthwash, have coffee, write this, switch to tea, write my long poem, switch to physics and math, for now, I don’t know if, long term, I will continue to write physics papers, and do math, as, it seems to me that I may have put all my ideas together into an acceptable world view, and, after that, find that I don’t have a whole lot more to say, but, for now, diet Dr. Pepper soda pop while doing physics and math, then switch to chamomile and passionflower tea, work on a song either before or after painting, eat a snack for lunch, then paint, then more chamomile and passionflower tea, then write a couple poems and post on social media, and that should hold me over until about 3:00—upon which I can switch to seltzer water, and, contented with my output for the day, happily watch TV without guilt or regret until 7:00, eat dinner, take my vitamin, my magnesium glycinate, and my lurasidone, play bridge, brush my teeth, drink a ginger ale while watching a modest amount of TV, wash up if I haven’t already, use fluoride mouthwash to wash the soda pop off my teeth and help my enamel, go to bed around 9:00, read a modest number of pages, and turn out the lights around 9:30. That seems, right now, to be the best possible routine for me—as, at this point, I’ve tried pretty much everything, and I don’t see how to improve the quality of my life in any other way. I have my fingers crossed, as this seems to be the end of the line, and I seem to already be taking the best medications for my condition . . . so Godspeed. Note, when my parents pass away, I’ll have an extra hour or so that won’t involve an extended meal or bridge—but, perhaps, by then, I’ll find something else to do with an hour of my time—something besides working and watching TV. I don’t know what that will be, but retired people find ways to occupy themselves that don’t involve work and TV, and, so, since it’s only an hour, I should find something, and things should work out, then, too. But they seem to be doing fine, for now, and I’m not expecting anything bad to happen, so I should have some time to adjust, and work things out, if and when I’m on my own, entirely.