Saturday, November 30, 2019

swallowing stress


SWALLOWING STRESS
I was always a very high strung child. Luckily for the most part we always lived out in the country and I could avoid people for long stretches of time. As I got older, and a corresponding increase in chores, physical labor along with solitude ( with books ) pretty much handled my stress. After I got married the first time, hour long jogs substituted for strangling the spouse. The exponential increase in stress with Baby Mama was harder to tame, but it gave me huge amounts of energy at work.
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I treated my displeasure with wife no4, as well as the stress from the job working for bitch bosses, by working harder and faster. As you might recall, Christmas is far from my favorite season, the joy of it taking a huge squishy from the first holiday without my kids and getting worse as retailers turned a quarter of the year into extra work for their own profit. One time I was working for Family Dollar ( may their executives be boiled alive in liquid feces for all eternity in the lower bowels of Hell ) and between all the extra crap showing up in August, and doing the managers job for her, I was steaming mad.
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Keep in mind I'm the only guy there, so I'm schlepping freight all week long, being the assistant manager on top of that, and now covering for a new manager who probably needed to get laid she was so worthless. Oh, but Jim, now we need you to hand write every single bar code, quantity ( think scores of tiny decorations ), pack it and put it all up twenty feet in the loft for storage for next year, on top of your normal duties. I was so pissed I was literally running up the vertical ladder, heavy boxes carried one handed and throwing them overhand up into the loft, while mumbling curses.
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I was in my mid-thirties, still strong of muscle and endurance. And of course, you know with that kind of temper and energy, the boss just pisses you off on purpose to get an extra man shift performance, free. That was my last job, at the food bank. Bitch boss rode me like a rabid pony, and as much as I wanted to kick her in the knee to take down her fat ass, straddle her body and put all my weight into pulverizing her face, I had to contain myself and take out my hate on inanimate objects. Even her dumb ass eventually figured out how to push my buttons for even more work, free.
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Well, by now you might be seeing the issue. You are only fleet of foot and infused with unlimited energy while young. Once you get old, not only does your job throw you under the bus ( because an aging manual worker should ease into management but now all the females hold those positions ), you can't rely on physical work to burn off the stress. I HAD to quit the food bank, not only because if I stayed I would have hurt the boss, but also because I was starting to slow down. I was huffing and puffing, and at night I was a lot more sore. It would have just been a matter of time.
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Now, even though 90% of my stress was gone along with the job, remember what I said about being high strung. Without extra exercise, what was a brother to do about stress? At first, I just wrote more, as writing was a large stress release also, for twenty years. Just vomit all that frustration and hate onto the page. And it worked for some time. But then we started seeing an unfortunate trend, or at least I did, and the economy started imploding. Now my stress was back with a vengeance. Writing until my brain hurt, then staying busy reading didn't help. I was writing and reading doom and gloom.
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And again, extra exercise wasn't an option. I worked like a mule, until suddenly ( seemingly ) one day I couldn't even do twenty percent of what I had been. And it isn't sitting at a desk for the last two and a half years. The week I quite the food bank, I was out at my place trying to take up up digging the latest hole. I couldn't do it back then. Now, granted, I can't bike every day like I used to, so biking out there I had no energy to dig. If I was living out there, I could still dig. Perhaps for fifteen minutes, half hour. If I did nothing else the rest of the day.
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I have the muscles still, but far too many years of working and biking outside in severe temperatures and I fried my lungs from the cold. Hey, I grew up in California. Even at Lake Tahoe it doesn't get all that cold. I didn't realize, until too late, what that does to your wind. Not that ignorance is an excuse with Darwin. So, time to once again relearn coping mechanisms. I needed to counteract the daily stress brought on by bad news of a serious nature ( at least as I perceived it ). I needed to do something besides studying and planning, something concrete.
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I needed to physically act every day. Something in the real world, not digital, to prepare. Even the the most mundane task, like digging another hole ( it just needs to be small, and done slowly ), or vacuum sealing something for that hole, or going to the thrift store for stockpile items. Even getting another bag or three of sugar and finding a ghetto engineering way of packing it, such as re-purposing a plastic empty coffee can.
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There are plenty of prepper chores to be done that cost nothing, such as reorganizing the basement to make more room ( at the same time making it look cleaner and more organized to please The Boss ). I can repackage items so that they can be more quickly loaded into the NOL's vehicle to bug out to the B-POD. For a half week now I've been doing something every day having to do with prepping. I never worried before about DAILY, and this isn't anything I'll regret not doing, per se, but just something to get me out of my head by doing with my hands.
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As a result, because I'm DOING instead of WORRYING, my stress level has come down to a more reasonable level. Before, I'd always been content that I was already ready enough, for whatever. Now, I suppose I have to have a version of rosary beads, something to keep my hands busy. Not to say I can eliminate all the extra stress. I can feel one of the larger disturbances in The Force here. But before I could feel the stress building up. At least now the pressure is reduced. Dammit! It was so much more enjoyable when it was theoretical.
( .Y. )
( today's related Amazon link click HERE )
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note: JM, many thanks for the super extra generous PayPal donation.  I'm calling it a December donation, as I already added up Novembers, in ink.  Plus, it is then a Christmas gift for my extra special hair.
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20 comments:

  1. I once briefly worked under a successful Chinese-American lady in the life insurance business. I didn't tell her why I didn't want to solicit old work colleagues, but it had to do with the fact that I really didn't want to get shut down by them, but she knew what I was thinking. She said something like, "I don't ever look back because it hurts my neck."

    Retired now, I still look back and cringe at relationships. It ain't worth it. Need to keep busy and find new challenges that don't involve ghosts of the past. A college classmate living in Idaho gave advice for retirement health: "Keep moving."

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  2. Right. I am also in a same state of mind, and like kind physical circumstances scenerio. I literally had to tap out and walk away from the workforce, out of my own personal interest considerations due to the negative health effects (both physical and mental), occupational personal safety threats, and the meat grinder drain on my time and resource allocations to maintain that nowadays shit job employment. A Minionite has to make a personal assessment as to the continued viability of being engaged in those systems (work, public participations, cultural or society traditions, etc)

    The stress channeling and anger management techniques must correctly be channeled into some physical endevour. This is not as much as a therapy, as it is to just keep one from getting tripped up by "society tripwires" and "system's created booby traps". The local-state-fed laws, corporate employment rules, and newer SJW dogma culture revolution onslaughts are all "engineered" to slap down your deplorable self if one gets out of line in any 'perceived' forms.

    Checking out from the bullshit realities and hermitaging oneself to a near solitary status is not to be snickered at as it is really a wise and smart move to do, considering what is arrayed against you out there.

    My free state of mind, and time usage liberty, makes me far wealthier in what has true value. Being the yuppie redoubter larded up with work, debt, systems stresses is always a net "LOSER" equation.

    Stay the Frostiest one in your 'hood.

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  3. Lord Bison,

    My stress reliever this weekend is canning 75 lbs. of boneless, skinless chicken breast that the local store is selling for $1.58 lb. this week.

    Nightshift, while I have my faith in God, I give no credence in the church of today. Most are just Sunday country clubs.

    I'll say a prayer for your pain. I hope you can use your faith in the coming months as he starts to heal and learns to adapt to his new normal, and fights all the doubts he will have.

    God does have reasons why things happen. Most time we believe that they just SUCK!!! without understanding the reason WHY??? That is the true test of our faith.

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    1. Are they still injecting 20-30% broth into the meat? I stopped buying them after that, but the brown meat seems to be all bone and I'm thinking of switching back.

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    2. This is the Tyson brand.
      Yea, there seems to be some extra "juice" when it's done. If I had to guess, I'd say, probably 5% is added to the weight.

      I have done ham, hotdogs, bacon, beef, burger, pork loin, and sausage (gound and bratwurst type).

      By the way, I figured out how they make vienna sausages. Just can some hotdogs. I watched a video on Youtube and tried it myself. NO... they are NOT hotdogs after. They are vienna sausages. Just really big. :)

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    3. Damn, I love vienna sausage, and hate hot dogs. Now I'll have to look it up. Thanks.

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    4. Maybe add pepper or some such spices to zip up the flavor a bit in the canning water. This will add some more flavor if you are cutting up and adding them to some hobo or infantry one pot mix it up type rations. I get the Bar-S cheap sausages 14 links count, 2.5 pounds, polish and classic smoked types. Wally grocery, by the hot dogs and rope type sausages. They go down ok for cheap eating. The prices of whole unprocessed meats are inflating. It pushes budget shoppers into the low budget lips and scrotum cuts of meats. Keep your pets inside, and secure the farm animals. Poaching is going to become a pro level sport real soon.

      Stay Frosty

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    5. Your cats aren't just for Hung-Lo's Ornamental Delight restaurants anymore.

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    6. I grew up on Tyson bone-in chicken thighs, they're the cheapest and I never got the memo that as an American I'm not supposed to like dark meat chicken.

      A chest freezer is the way to go, but keep in mind you gotta cycle in/out the meat you store, because even in a freezer, enough time = meat only good for baiting buzzards.

      I understand, Lord Bison, you're in a town now, and working somewhere?

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    7. In town now, as this wife is the first one I'd make that sacrifice for. But not working elsewhere. Just writing. What you see on the monthly writing income report is all I make.

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  4. I agree. Nothing beats action to stop anxiety. Well, booze. But action is a strong number two. Well, booze and chicks.

    Action is definitely number three.

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  5. I'll stick with #3, thanks. No one needs to deal with psycho strippers while hung over.

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  6. Replies
    1. I'm on #5, NOL, New Old Lady. Old Lady as in motorcycle club slang for wife. And old lady as she is a few years older than me. I just kept going until I got it right.

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  7. The movie you mentioned to me is "The Survivors" 1982 or so, with, indeed, Robin Williams. Also Walter Matthau so it's got to be at least fairly good. Makes fun of survivalists but that's like shooting fish in a barrel in my experience.

    I remember in Army Basic, maybe it was AIT, buying a book called "The Survivalist", a small paperback. Now, the kind of books retailed to those subject to "the economic draft" are YA (young adult) level at best, and this was comically bad, except that it was utterly laced with brand names and product names of all kinds of "naughty fun" survivalist weapons and gear. Apparently this got made into a series of books and I imagine they're all Gawd-awful.

    I get the impression survivalists consider these books to be canon, and since I'd obtained this first one in 1981 or so at latest, it means there were plenty of goofs out there for Robin Williams and Walter Matthau to make fun of.

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    1. The reason I liked the movie, besides it being funny, was that it didn't demonize survivalism, it just pointed out some of the over the top aspects. The book series was nothing other than pulp fiction, and nobody thought that highly of it. The one with a more rebid following took place in the "tri-states". Folks love its Christian Fundamentalist fascist government philosophy. To be fair, I thought it was pretty cool, and the author was MUCH better at his craft. Johnson? Totally escapes me now. One of my squad mates ( shy and never full of BS ) was from Louisiana, same area as the author, and knew him by reputation, a hermit in the swamp writing away. Wrote a lot of westerns, too.

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    2. I think it's the Ashes series. Alone in the ashes.
      Demented Guy

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    3. Sorry, I posted and then saw I was answering a comment that was already answered. I'm a dumbass. Demented Guy

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  8. James, do you mean Out of the Ashes (series) by William Johnstone?

    I have several of the books in that series.
    Great writing...

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    Replies
    1. There you go! That's the one. More group dynamics than Gear Queer. Gotta wonder if Rawlesarians are former Tri-Staters, and how much he realized what he was doing.

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