The good:

• I'm succeeding at tricking my plants (tomatoes, jalapeños, spearmint, chives, onion, basil) into thinking it's a different season than it actually is by keeping my house quite warm and putting a humidifier on them.
• I'm feeling a little bit better with respect to my motivation levels and my suspected Long COVID.
• I feel like I have a handle on my never-ending to-do list, and I'm more organized in Workflowy.
• I've been doing really well with getting to bed early (often around 20:00) and waking up early (often around 04:30) to get more personal/routine stuff done earlier in the day so that I have more headspace throughout the day to focus on work and other priorities.
• In the last week of my 16-week cut (fat-loss phase), I'm down roughly 35 lbs from 222 lbs after my bulk (muscle-gain phase).
• I got my new, custom-designed snowboard.
• No new incidences in the last few weeks of Murrby's peeing in the entryway.
• Making progress on deciding on a fertility clinic.
• Really enjoyed watching all of Avatar: The Last Airbender with Chase.
• Started Chase on a more-than-900-episode voyage to watch all of Star Trek, and so far, he's really enjoying the beginning of The Next Generation.
• My family and friends in Israel are physically safe for now.
• While Robert Sapolsky's Determined has been somewhat infuriating in many respects, it's also led me to consider a few new angles on the topic of determinism and volition, as well as how to articulate certain ideas more clearly.

The bad:

• Billy (my dog with Adam) died in early October.
• I've resigned myself to the conclusion that Murray is probably dead, but gone for good, in any case.
• My maternal grandmother died in August, and that's brought up a lot of difficult, complex emotions, given our challenging family dynamics over the years.
• I'm irritable as all fuck, largely magnified by my hanger and caloric deficit.
• I remain nervous about my job security and some worrisome dynamics at work.
• Max and Murrby are largely feeling like a burden right now.
• Relatedly, I haven't been devoting enough time to training Max.
• I haven't yet gotten a canine companion for Max.
• Since starting on Phenobarbital in July and only evidence of one seizure in early September, Murrby has had two epileptic seizures in the last two weeks.
• I'm wrestling with Cigna's discriminatory coverage policies, which wouldn't be such a huge problem if they didn't insist that they weren't discriminating.

The ugly:

• Despite numerous attempts to clean it with various enzymatic agents and methods, my entryway still smells like a urinal because of Murrby's desire to pee on the floor there.
• I'm super frustrated with numerous issues with a lot of technology in my life:
  • Google Nest Hub / Google Assistant, and their inability to control the correct lights
  • Pixel Watch
  • Pixel Buds Pro
  • Nest Thermostat
  • Google Headlines in Discover (always showing me "news" about murder, war, death, rape, violence, etc, as well as sports for some reason)
  • Fi Collar
  • Roomba
  • Anova Sous Vide
  • Intuit Mint
  • Ubiquiti UniFi access points providing poor coverage in Cades' home
  • just random bugs across tons of apps and websites
• I'm disappointed with the quality of much of the cultural discourse (and the individual attitudes and dispositions that people hold) around the recent intensification of conflict in the Middle East. I understand that people are frustrated and angry (and with good reason), and yet it seems that many of their approaches (mostly manifesting a sort of us-themming) often reflect a certain level of hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness. I can see so clearly how it leads to the continuation and intensification of conflict and division, all because it lacks compassion, understanding, and genuine human connection.