Austin
8:49 am - Woke to iPhone alarm: Pinegrove - “Amulets”. This has been one of my alarm songs for 6 or 7 years.
Took a shit
Brewed coffee
9:08 am - consumed (1) On 4mg nicotine pouch
Sat in my chair and read some of Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton.
9:30 am - AA meditation meeting on zoom. Favorite way to start the day. New guy had 18 days sober, it was exciting. Well-attended lately, lot of special people in there. Blessed to be among them.
9:59 am - On 4mg
Pourover #2
Traded stocks in personal/recreational Cashapp account: Bought Landbridge, sold some Merck, Constellation, United Health, Crowdstrike. Nothing over $100. Not buying this sort of shit for my Roth, all for fun.
Wrote long DM to Alex M. about Thomas Merton vs. how I've been feeling lately. Needed some feedback from a young guy who's married and has a kid. If I want what they have, I am ready to send certain messages.
Watched instagram clip of Sauce Walka talking about Screw music, saved to repost later.
Pooped 2nd time
Flossed and brushed
10:45 am - Zyn 3mg
Stretched, did 50 situps & 25 pushups. Listened to Kai Cenat/NLE Choppa song, added it to summer playlist bc it is kind of funny
Summer Darling was still queued from Sunday’s dough-making shift at work. Love a couple of their later albums/EPs. They sound like… we have mid 2000s Death Cab at home
11:34 am - Zyn 3mg
12 oz water, 200mg ibuprofen, 260mg magnesium glycinate
Watered plant, packed backpack
Pooped 3rd time. Usually 2x/day but yesterday’s diet was not long on fiber.
Prayed on walk to work - Thank you for this day. Help me remember that my knowledge is limited, that hard work doesn't absolve me of my sin.
Brought an old Sally shirt for Vinamra (Vee). Seems like he’ll quit as soon as he gets a big boy job. Sometimes I am rude/annoying to him… wanted to do something nice for him while he’s still around. Working on selling or giving away ~100 t-shirt collection that I have been carrying around from Texas to Chicago to Philly. Gave the shirt to Vee but showed Finn and Megan first, they were both surprised, a rare jawn.
Ate 2-day-old staff meal pasta, two handfuls blueberries, piece of smoked salmon.
Talked to Finn about his Spindrift & cold brew invention, George Sabatino, Townsend Wentz, our favorite flavors (mine serrano or manchego, his miso or just “something fermented”), our old coworker he keeps running into who can't get hired around town, him watching Love Island and me dipping into Kardashians, Year in Philly blog, Thomas Merton, Screwtape Letters, what we think we might eat for dinner.
12:50 pm - Kaitlyn and I had an issue over the weekend and we agreed to take some space to cool off and get our own stuff done. I figured it would be a ~week but she texted to say she's ready to talk. It's only been 2 days. I don't know if I am ready. My heart still really needs a reset. I have trouble letting go of turbulence. Something is wrong with me and I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do about it. Reading Merton helped a lot the past couple of days… but I wanna talk it out with my sponsor and a couple of friends before I sit down with Kaitlyn again. I should text her and tell her that now but I'm gonna wait. Gonna clock out at ~3
1:21 pm - On 4mg
Think I missed an On somewhere in here?
3:14 pm - On 4mg
3:15 pm - Clocked out. In 3 hours I mised wet/dry ingredients for 15# sausage, cut & (mostly) cooked 4qt batch of vinegar peppers, washed & cut 2 cases (10#) mushrooms, made 1qt miso dressing for mushrooms.
Printed Aug calendar on Sally's printer. Carrying around a paper monthly calendar has helped immensely with remembering/planning obligations. School, work, AA, dates with Kaitlyn, doctor’s appointments, etc. Hashtag adulting.
Chatted with Ed about Pizza Shackamaxon, he just started working there.
Megan told me thanks for coming in to help today. She is so cool and thoughtful and level-headed. Feels great working for her and Finn. She asked about the Reunion poetry reading/party where I set up Mel to DJ for part of the evening. August 17th at Ulana’s.
Ate a fat pint of blueberries from Sally fridge while walking home. Took a pic after inhaling most of it.
3:42 pm - On 4mg
Walked back to Sally for keys
Idk how I made it this far in the day without being angry, impatient, disruptive, but I know I'm doing it with your help, God. Thank you.
3:55 pm - Down $57.31 in Cashapp stocks for today. Nvidia keeps correcting down, P&G same but less extreme.
Laid down on yoga mat and edited this.
Alex M. responded thoughtfully so I wrote another long message asking him basically how to be a good partner. Feel pretty dumb when I ask for help re: emotions, relationships, human-ness.
Alex E. responded to my IG story of Merton page - "Are you a Christian these days?". Felt glad to say yes. When she knew me (high school), I was a mess, and I hadn’t really even gotten started making trouble. We messaged for a bit about Bible study, fitting in with a church, Tim Keller, the spiritual buoy of community.
4:52 pm - Hand-ground some Elixr decaf for late afternoon pourover.
4:59 pm - On 4mg
Sent Kevin Costello's Year in Philly entry to Finn since I mentioned loving it earlier. Later he responded "Incredible read".
Pre-ordered 2 copies of But Did You Die? by Precious Okoyomon (Wonder) - $49.91. Trying to make this the last time I spend money today.
5:10 pm - pooped a 4th time, charged phone/laptop/headphones, listened to Kevin Gates "Really Really" then more queued Summer Darling while reading today's microbiology labs. Looks like a lot of work.
Downloaded Forrest Frank - Child of God album to play on Spotify offline
5:34 left for school. Walked up 20th, through Rittenhouse and up 18th St. to Spring Garden.
Listened to some of Child of God. Great stuff. Love the phone call with his grandpa. Wish there were two or three Forrest Franks. Wondered what Jordan thinks, will have to ask him soon.
6:07 pm - late for class. 1/4 the class gave their infectious disease presentations.
Ayanna - HSV
Angel - CJ Disease
Aaron - necrotizing fasciitis
Regheim - Leprosy
Richard - AIDS
Avrey - gonorrhea
Marsel - pertussis
Did not pay attention at all to the last presenter. The asian girl. I was texting Andre.
6:18 pm - On 4mg, also drank some water
~7:00 pm - On 4mg
~8:00 pm - On 4mg
Did lab. Was sort of complicated. I like my lab partners Jasmine and Richard. They both work in hospitals already but are doing prereqs for nursing school. Lab was inoculating 6 different microbial culture media with 5 different bacteria. I took one for the team and did all the E. Coli because it has an unpleasant smell.
9:20 pm - Done with lab
Texted Andre more about his "consulting work". He got a job at a pizza place apparently, he says he left bc they were not good, now he wants to ask me how much he should've charged them for consulting. Lol. I gave him a kind and thoughtful response, describing how much "consulting" I've done for free in the last couple of years. It's not none. I think he just wanted to vent and feel like he had a friend in his corner. Happy to text him here and there, especially about restaurant operations. But so many people are just out of touch with the reality of their lives. I am desperately trying not to be one of them. Have to keep some distance there. Also trying to stop judging so harshly. That is hard.
Ate ~15 cherries walking home.
9:28 pm - On 4mg
Texted my sponsor Tom back. He always texts to invite me out to the afternoon AA meeting in Rittenhouse if he's going. I'm usually rushing at that hour to do something, and often just show up or don't text back until the evening. I explained some of my current emotional crisis to him the other day. So he checked up on me late afternoon, and I finally texted back after class. Love that guy. Great to talk to someone who's been sober longer than I've been alive.
Ended up losing $57.26 on Cashapp today. Bubble could deflate soon, but who knows.
10:09 pm - Got home, texted Kaitlyn back about when to meet up. I am busier than I would “like” to be, but that just means I gotta set things up so they happen. Getting better at time management and not letting schedule stress bleed into how I communicate about plans.
Read Cherry by Nico Walker for a bit, minutiae app prompted me to take a pic (pic). It's good, never read it before. Had a copy in 2018 that I mailed to Lou in Chicago. Got this copy from Steven last year after he moved back from Puerto Rico (?). This is a dumb thing to say but so far it's halfway between Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish and Welfare by Steve Anwyll. That's pretty much the range of what I read, I'm a simple guy.
Made a decent pantry slop, big batch, took 45 mins, needs scallions but I don't have any.
1 box rice noodles
1 can coconut milk
3 tbsp thai red curry paste
1 can chickpeas
5 eggs
Sriracha, tamari, salt
It was kind of good. 6.5/10. I was hungry, ate 1/4 of it.
11:44 pm - On 4mg
I need to delete Instagram app again. Had it on my phone for like 24 hours and it's already ruining my life. I follow ~7500 accounts and I can just look at it for hours and hours. Truly great app but I have shit to do. Only downloaded it to see how Ginssiyo is doing. I like that guy a lot, should hit him up soon.
12:03 am - Finally texted Rachel back. She'd sent pic of an amazing looking creature
Rachel is my best friend. We aren't as close as I wish we could be. But we have been making time for each other this year. Working it out on the record. Sharing our stories. She's so smart and has the biggest heart. Self-made, tough, sensitive, swaggy, funny, loving. It's a blessing to know her.
12:18 am - The beat from Aminé - "Caroline" is stuck in my head
12:43 am - Listening to this playlist I made while editing this.
If you've eaten dinner at Sally lately, you might've been listening to this. Megan says it's good but raunchy - Sally 2023 vibes for real.
1:35 am - Finished formatting this and adding pics. Thought about writing a 10th step inventory for this blog post - reviewing my day and asking myself about resentments, mistakes, fears. Deciding against that. Will do it in the shower. Going to fall asleep listening to cable news, as I have done most nights for the last 10 years. It's complicated, but it's not, too. Lucky to live this life.
Austin Islam is from Dallas, baby. Freaq Freaq Zone.
