In previous posts, I talked a lot about going out, and getting out of the house to do various activities, all of which include some incremental or extra effort to accomplish them. Hence why I might put them on a 60×60 list — it isn’t just business as usual, I need to plan for them, schedule time perhaps, and even figure out HOW to do them in some cases.

Today’s grouping is a bit different. I want to complicate my home life, at least in the kitchen.

Andrea does most of the cooking in our house, with exceptions for barbecuing or more complicated meals where I am mostly sous-chef. Pre-pandemic, I was in charge of sandwiches and things for lunches, but that is mostly down to just Jacob now, and for which I have a disturbingly frequent habit of ordering pizza on Sunday nights so I have pizza slices to plunk into his lunches for the week. He would take pizza over a sandwich any day of the week…heck, let’s be honest, he’d take it EVERY day of the week.

For me, I frequently plan forays into the kitchen more like small skirmishes against a welcoming army of one. Andrea would abdicate if I wanted to take up permanent residence probably. But my choices frequently run to fried or more unhealthy choices than she would make, and I’m inconsistent. Today, I’m adding 5 goals related to cooking and eating at home.

Five cooking goals

14. Try 60 new recipes. I have more recipes to try than I can shake a stick at, and I think a few in the vegetarian cookbook might even show me how to prepare sticks. I feel like my recipe candidates are divisible into three general categories. First, there are the types of recipes, such as individual ideas (ice cream, tiramisu, a cassata, short ribs) or larger groupings (ground beef, soups).

Second, there are recipes to make with specific tools such as the Dutch oven (lots of ground beef ones in there), Instapot (we found a chicken thigh one that is amazing a few years ago), or our relatively-new toaster oven (broiled pork chops turn out amazing with little fuss). We just had to replace our stove, and in doing so, we upgraded to one with dual ovens AND an air fryer option. Last night, we air-fried Italian sausages and with a little time adjustment from a generic online recipe, they turned out perfect. Honestly? The best sausages we have ever made at home. Light, not heavy; perfectly cooked; lower on grease. I would hesitate to ever call sausages a “healthy” choice, but they were pretty damn good. We had a medium-sized air fryer that a friend had given us, and it was good, but a bit complicated. The oven option? Easy as pie. Without the pie. 🙂 I have about 20 cookbooks downloaded off the internet with air fryer recipes, and I am going to be pushing a bunch of those to try over the next five years.

And then finally, I have a third category which is more about the “source” of the recipes. Cookbooks, obviously, but not just ANY cookbooks — some are from work, one is a gift with recipes from the Coconut Lagoon, and there is even a set of Raddish Kids recipes that we signed Jacob up for at some point, got a ton of good stuff, and then shut off the tap for a while. Finding recipes is never the problem — finding ones that I think will work well for Andrea, Jacob AND me together is more the challenge. Jacob’s untrained palate knocks out most strong spice options, for instance, although I’m also not a big fan of heat, and Andrea is only slightly more tolerant than either of us.

15. Bake 60 items. We have a bread maker and various bread-making tools (silicone moulds, for example). And as my great-grandfather used to be a baker, my father used to bake when I was young. Buns, tarts, and cinnamon buns were his specialty. Me? I want to learn to bake some things from scratch, particularly bread, of course. But I’ve made a more granular list of things to “try”…bread, cakes, cupcakes, cookies, pastries (pies and tarts), and pudding. I don’t have a grand plan for all this beyond bread, but I’ll figure it out as I go.

16. Curate 10 recipes. A few years ago, we went through a bunch of nacho options and tried them out. In the end, I came up with my “recipe” for 8-layer nachos. We tested different chips, were more flexible on salsa, and considered various types of ingredients that often go in (olives were a pass), and in the end, we have a great recipe that works well for our family. Panda nachos, if you will. I want to do the same for another 10 recipes, approximately 2 a year, and I have a small working list so far. Bread, as I mentioned above, is something I want to do much more often. In a perfect world, I’d like a standard bread that I made once or twice a week with some variations occasionally. But I need to “nail” which bread form and tool I want it to be. I rarely get off the printed page with recipes, as I can never remember the order or quantity for ingredients. It’s more like a scientific experiment, but I’d like to get to the “cooking as art” stage with bread.

A co-worker did a series of similar tests with homemade pizza, which seems like a great endeavour. Peanut butter cookies are on my list, as my mom used to make them when I was a kid and they were my favourite. I’ll add quesadillas and tacos to the list, although for tacos, I mean mostly adding a “hard taco” to the list of options, if I can. We do soft tacos all the time, more as fajitas though. I mentioned cinnamon buns above, my father’s special skill, so that makes the list.

We’ve made homemade burgers a few times. Mixed a bunch of ingredients together to make thicker, better patties to cook on the barbecue. It often gets done in large batches to fill up the freezer, but when they’re gone, I go months if not years before replenishing. Recently, I got some from Farm Boy that had a bunch of cheese options in it. They wouldn’t last long if made by hand, as they would probably have to be used/cooked that day, but I like the premise of coming up with some better-than-store-bought patties. Again, with lots of testing of ingredients, maybe some spices (my wife has boatloads of Epicure spices to try), and some other less frequent ingredients (peppers, cheese, bacon bits, etc.). So burgers make the list.

And I really want to do wings. I’ve played with this idea multiple times over the years, at least mentally. I love wings, I admit it. I have it narrowed down to four main variables for me to play with…source of wings, type, cooking method, and sauce.

For the source, I’m not wedded to the idea that they absolutely have to be fresh. I’m willing to take ones that are sold in meat departments just as much as consider the frozen food section for plain bulk wings. Ideally, they would be fresh, but if it adds to the complication for the other variables, I’m willing to consider any and all sources. Similarly for the type of wings. I don’t want breaded wings, that’s easy. Probably split. But I’m willing to consider other configurations. For cooking, I assumed my choices were going to be oven or BBQ, and while I like the premise of adding the BBQ taste, ensuring consistency is more challenging for me. I don’t want them burnt or undercooked. I also don’t want to spend 20 minutes flipping them and then starting back at the beginning.

Finally, for the sauce, as I mentioned above, my wife has tons of Epicure spices. Plus I’m willing to buy various types of rubs or sauces out of bottles to see what I like. I’ve tried a few from a couple of BBQ stores, and while they may have been the most popular ones in the rack according to the store owners, they did NOTHING for me. I am NOT looking for heat, which is a bit of a sacrilege when it comes to ribs and wings, I know. Normally, I prefer adding sauces or glazes rather than using rubs, although I also don’t want to need a hose to clean off when I’m done eating, so more of a light wet coating than having it dripping off the wing.

For a time, I thought about having a bunch of people over to try out different wing recipes, a more in-home option for Mid-month Movie Madness for Men who like Meat, without restricting it to men or including a movie. Just some people in the backyard, trying out different wing sauces. I am more interested at this point in just doing my own thing, and now that we have a large air fryer option for the oven, I don’t have to worry about the inconsistency of results on the barbecue nor the complications of “layers” in the countertop air fryer. I am 99% sure that I’ll be going with air frying in the oven as my main method, so I can now return to the source and type of wings before moving on to sauces, rubs and glazes.

If my math is correct, that gives me 8 recipes to “perfect” or curate. I don’t yet know what the other two will be, although ice cream sounds attractive. I’ll find others as time goes by. A good stew would be nice to have in the arsenal or three sisters soup.

17. The breakfast spread. This one is a bit odd, although I’m not sure why. In movies or TV, you frequently see a large family or group of friends together and they’re enjoying a large breakfast spread. It looks amazing, there are lots of choices, all of that, with lots of people around the table. But do you know what amazes me most though? That people seemingly think everyone knows how to make all of those things, can do so easily, and have them all come out at the same time?

I am not looking to replicate that experience in the broader sense. I don’t want 20 people for breakfast, I don’t want to prepare 19 different types of omelettes. But I like the idea that I could, in theory, prepare ANY of those big options myself at home. Let me start with the most obvious and perhaps the most embarrassing. Eggs.

I suck at eggs. I can’t crack them easily, I have to use a hand-held egg cracker most of the time. And then I nuke it in a container in the microwave.

But if I’m frying them? Sunny-side or over-easy would be my choice in the restaurant, but I end up getting grease splatter, and over-hard is a far more likely outcome. Scrambled or poached are also hit-and-miss for me, let alone even hard-boiled (I like HB eggs, although I like the white more than the yolk). I would also like to have a really good omelet recipe. I’m not quite ready to commit to a curated omelet option, but I am attracted to that option.

Bacon? I hate frying things, and thus am always on the hunt for some simple way of doing non-greasy crispy-but-not-burnt bacon. Mostly I don’t bother. I would like to add peameal to the list of options though, beyond simple strips.

Regularly when we go out for breakfast, most big places have skillet options. They’re good, a different config than most breakfasts. It feels more like a cowboy out on a range, mixing stuff together. I love the premise, and the taste, but have no idea how I would do it or even what I would put in. Potatoes would be an obvious side option if I didn’t want to go full skillet.

And then we come to my son’s favourites: pancakes! I’ll throw french toast, waffles, and crêpes in there too. It isn’t something I cook very often, and while I know they aren’t difficult, the issue for me is mostly consistency and simple flavouring. If I have to look up what I’m going to do, I probably won’t do it, it just seems too involved. But there are lots of Sunday mornings that I would love the idea of cooking breakfast for the three of us with their favourites and mine.

You wouldn’t think that toast would make the list, and it doesn’t, not exactly. It is more the idea of toast made from fresh bread, or the options of fresh bagels.

Then we move into the healthy fresh fruit medley. We have some on-hand, almost always, but I like the idea too of finding ways to merge with the crêpes.

Cereal is fine, oatmeal okay (although I’d like to come up with ways to add my own flavourings), various yogurt combinations, or add in smoothies and different juices, all part of the “buffet”.

While that would be a good place to “end” my list, I wonder too about some breakfast sandwich options. Westerns, paninis, melts. Outside of grilled cheese, melts rarely make my list, nor paninis even. I would love a good Western sandwich more regularly, but I don’t bother. And again, if I do it, I want it to be consistent.

Sooooo, where does that leave me? As I said, I don’t want to open my doors to breakfast for 20 people, and I’m not looking to make ALL of these for one go. But I do like the idea of knowing how to do them all relatively easily and consistently. I just need a bit of a plan. Maybe I’ll designate September as “fried egg” month before moving on to scrambled and poached. 🙂

18. Grow something to eat. Okay, this one is a bit different. I have very little interest in gardening. But I do like the idea of eating something fresh from a garden. Andrea and Jacob gave me some seeds for my birthday, so we’ll try doing celery and green beans in the backyard. It won’t be some big garden, just a small planter. It’s an experiment. Just something that I’ve never done.

Wrapping up

Another five goals have been added to the list. I confess that I struggled with some of them today, similar to what I was talking about yesterday. Should perfecting / curating a recipe for wings be a separate goal? Or do I merge the 10 under a general curation goal? For the breakfast ones, my list has 12 separate categories to do better on, but I could have separated out crêpes from pancakes, I suppose.

Part of what drives me in my extra noodling is the amount of effort involved. Perfecting the wing recipe? That could take me months of trial and error. Yet it only gives me 1/10th of an overall goal? On the other hand, I could walk a 10K distance, and that only gets me 1/60th of a goal, so maybe consistency in goal effort is the hobgoblin of little minds. Anyway, carrying on…

I’ve been working through a bunch of my past lists, trying to pull out various things that would make for good “bucket list” accomplishments over the next five years. I was looking at what I’m planning to do for exercise, and so I might as well group them all together.

6. Walking. I’m going to start off small for the first while, aiming to do 40 walks of 2K each over the five years. I’m also going to try to work up to 15 walks of 5K each. Shouldn’t be too hard, although a bit back-ended. And, near the end? Five walks of 10K each. Fingers crossed.

7. Workouts. I’ll be restarting my workouts shortly, and I want to complete 300 in 5 years. That’s not that big, only five per month. Hopefully, I’ll finish early.

8. Archery. I liked archery as a kid, did it a bit in high school too, and I have often thought of doing one of the archery leagues or courses through the RA Centre. And, since part of my goal is to find some activities that I can do with others and attempt to increase my social connections, archery seems like an okay option.

9. Golf. My back is not in great shape, and it may take me a while, but I’d like to go golfing five times, aka at least once a year. I’m tempted to make a commitment to five different courses, but I’m not sure how realistic that is, particularly if I end up going by myself. If I can impose on my father-in-law and son, we might be able to go do 2-3 courses around Peterborough and the cottage.

10. Axe throwing. I actually tried this when I was a teen, just out at the cottage. It was never safe enough to do it for real for any length of time, but it seemed fun. More hatchet throwing at the time, I guess. Anyway, I like the idea of trying it, and if I can find a way to make it a social outing, all the better.

11. Bowling. I hesitate to plan to join a league, although I could use the extra motivation for exercise. Jacob and Andrea don’t enjoy it enough to go regularly, so I’ll probably go by myself. I’ll put it down for 30 times in 5 years, which is still significant. I need to have my back in better shape than it is now, but I’ll get there.

I’ll likely add other exercise options. I’d love to commit to something more martial arts related, or yoga even. Or perhaps even more activities in groups. Darts, obstacle courses, something else. I don’t have any ideas that really resonate with me, but I’ll go with these ones for now. I only have about 30 out of the 60 pre-planned, although I haven’t done all my travel ones yet. Not exactly anyway. Onward!

Before I get to part 2 of my plans for the future, I want to digress for a moment. I find it fascinating sometimes to see how an individual blog post progresses. Much of the time, before I go to start writing, I have a pretty good idea of what I’m going to say. I’ve thought about it; I know the major points I want to make; I have a rough mental outline.

But as I start to write, something odd happens. My neurons fire in a different way than I expected. I start writing A, B, C, and D, and it becomes more like A, B, C(2), E, H, and L. Or perhaps simply X, Y and Z. I end up somewhere I didn’t intend to go with the post.

Sometimes the reason is simple: I didn’t really know what I wanted to say. I thought I did, but it wasn’t fleshed out in my head enough. But other times, like with the previous post, it just went in a different direction because as I picked at a sub-aspect of the post, I found resonance of a different sort. Almost like I knew what I wanted to say but wasn’t entirely sure WHY I wanted to say it, and as I wrote, my intentions revealed themselves to me. As a result, I went with the flow, changing the direction of what I wanted to talk about.

As a reader, you might suspect it from time to time; other times, you won’t see it at all. For me, it is REAL easy to tell. First and foremost? The title of my post has to change. When I start writing, I put in a topic, but as I near the finish line for the post, I go back and read it in conjunction with the near-final text and realize my title has almost nothing to do with what I wrote. Secondly, it is almost always part 1 of a series of posts, not by intent but by the result…I finished the post and realized it was too long, so I cut it into smaller chunks, but in so doing, it often becomes clear that it is too long simply because something else was on my mind, hidden to my conscious side, and I ended up writing about something entirely different. A prologue that alters the context and direction of the post. Which leaves me calling it part 1 before I start writing about the original topic.

In my previous post, I talked about my mindset over the last 2 months or so. The mental struggle that I’ve been feeding, waiting for my birthday to arrive so I could kick off my new adventure in goal-setting, a symbolic and ritualistic endeavour. That struggle could have been one line, maybe two. Instead, I wrote a whole post about my mood, a previous pity party I threw that got me here, and my dark passenger / shadow self that hides inside and helps me endure, even embrace, isolation when my light-bearing side craves connection. It is and was a prologue to the “inventory” I mention below. The backstory for the hero within my personal story, if a hero can even be said to exist yet. Whether it’s the hero I need or the hero I deserve, that remains to be seen.

I had intended this “series” to be a short opening and then the grand “tadaaaa” reveal of my new goals. Instead, I started talking about dark passengers and now the foundational elements for composing the ritual and choosing my new goals. As I said in the previous post, much of what I base it on overlaps with self-help books, addiction groups, and even yoga mantras. I am not unique or original in that regard, alas. Join me as I review some of my key precepts.

A. Know the limits of my span of control

As much as I want to exert my will on the universe, and bring my resources to bear on the things that I CAN control, shit will still happen. We’ll end up with a housefire that leaves a thin layer of powder all over the first floor and part of the second floor that will linger for months, no matter what we do. Other people’s behaviour at work will interfere with my carefully laid plans and vision. I can’t control any of that. I can only control myself, and sometimes, not even that, as much as I try. I know that standing still is rarely a good option for me; I need to keep pushing myself forward or my dark passenger will make plans with the squirrels in my head, and I will backslide. It’s like a constant current pushing me out to sea; I need to keep swimming or drift.

Sometimes my dark passenger takes up more resident space in my brain and heart than I would like. I don’t usually give it a public license to roam, but I know it is still there. Sometimes it is even helpful. Like with the house fire. I didn’t have any hesitation. As soon as I saw it, I knew to get Andrea and Jacob out of the house and to have them call 911, while I assessed whether it was small enough to get completely out with the fire extinguisher while waiting for the fire department to arrive. My dark passenger removes fear or uncertainty and allows me to act when I need to, decisively even. Active energy to love and hate at the same time.

Sometimes it is beneficial to move forward assuming no limits, that I can control all things, and nothing will stop me (aka f*** the universe); other times, I need to recognize that there are limits and I will not be perfect, far from it. I hesitate to call it AA’s “day by day” approach or a reflection of the sports metaphor of playing “one game at a time”, but it’s a little like that. Plans help, but the universe doesn’t really care what I am planning. Heck, sometimes it feels like it is actively trying to block me. As long as I know man plans while the universe laughs, I know the end is not linear.

B. Everything starts with an inventory, not a pity party

Various programs often start with doing a “moral inventory” of your life. It is more like turning my analytical talents inward with an almost viciousness or ruthlessness to ensure no falsehoods remain, only truth. To burn off any lies that I might tell myself to protect my Id or Ego. That would have to include looking at the events of the last two months, some of which were chosen by me and some by the universe. It is akin to doing an x-ray of my raw psyche. Who I am and what I choose to do. No illusions. I’m checking the state of all the different energies and how to rebalance them.

But I am really struggling with this post. I have written the next section 3 times from scratch, with 3 attempts in between to just rewrite and edit it more towards what I want to say. Each time, it has looked like I was saying “I have no friends, wah wah wah” or “all my friends suck”, neither of which is true nor what I’m trying to say. The nuances are important, and I haven’t been able to find them.

Let’s back up a minute. I know that I am a cool blue analytical introvert by nature, meaning that I live inside my head more than on the cutting edge of spontaneity. I am not social by nature, and if I’m in a large group, I feel like I’m surrounded by yellow-energy vampires, sucking me dry with each passing moment. Yet what has been triggering me of late is a lack of social connectedness to others, and I’ve been trying to piece together a way to explain how it is “different” from previous points in my life.

I’ll invent a metaphor for the post, although I’m not totally sure it holds together. I’ll start by classifying social “interlocutors” as falling into one of five categories:

1. Casual friends — regular interaction, no real closeness;
2. Friends — often location-based (work, school), these are the people you hang out with regularly in those locations aka your peeps;
3. Close friends — those that have transcended a boundary like work or school to be people you hang out or bond with after the proximity transactions;
4. Best friends — relatively obvious, the ones that you can open your soul to and discuss whatever is going on; and,
5. Family/love.

Lots of people blend those categories or collapse them into one level. Everyone in the world is their best friend! Yeah, not me.

When I was in elementary school, I had probably a 20 / 30 / 10 / 10 / 30% split. Family dominated, one best friend, two close friends, not much in the others except at school, but I was far from the life of the party.

When I went into high school, that mix probably shifted to a 10 / 30 / 20 / 20 / 20% mix. Few simple interactions, some key friends at school, 1 friend outside school, a best friend in and out, and my family down a bit.

When I went to Trent, the ratio was probably 5 / 20 / 20 / 0 / 75%. I had a serious girlfriend who was initially my best friend and then was just family/love. Most of my time went to the long-distance relationship.

At UVic, something shifted. I knew going in that I was likely to be fairly homesick as I’m not good at making friends, and I didn’t know anyone there. Out of desperation, I corralled a small posse of misfit toys who like me tended not to have a huge entourage. Two were really close, but I’d hesitate to quite call them besties. Meanwhile, my family’s stuff waned with the distance. The ratio doesn’t fit as well, but I’d say 10 / 40 / 40 / 0 / 10% would be close. High on friends, low on anything else. Yet when I left UVic, they faded away, as they had from elementary school, high school and Trent. They were primarily location-based friendships.

In my late 20s and early 30s, something odd happened. I got 3 best friends. One male, two females. With the one male, we went out for dinner regularly, and went to hockey games, a true buddy. We talked about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the price of tickets for 67s games. One of the women was a work-friend initially, but there was a resonance of spirit that we both felt, and we would have really long conversations, including one overnight sitting in her car after coffee shops and restaurants had closed. One of the best conversations I’ve ever had in my life, and I doubt I remember any of the topics, just the experience. It wasn’t romantic, it was just pure utter friendship. A third was with another woman, and over time, it changed. We had long conversations too, and at one point, there was romantic interest on my part, with none on hers. Only one of those friendships really continues today, and while we will always be close, that bestie status would likely never repeat.

Yet even within that period, I had another 5-6 close friends that transcended the location-based friendships. The mix was probably 10 / 10 / 30 / 40 / 10. A very different look and feel to my life.

Fast-forward to now? It’s probably a somewhat diminished 10 / 20 / 10 / 0 / 60 ratio. An imbalance that is as much about choice, and spending time with Andrea and Jacob, as it is about a limit of social energy to devote beyond the basics.

I have close friends, some from long ago, some from now, and I could pick up the phone and call one, ask them to join me for a drink or something if I needed someone to talk to, and they would come. But it would be, umm, out of the ordinary to do that. We don’t really have that kind of relationship. We get together every now and then, someone’s in the area, there’s an event, something. But no regular interaction. Some close friends have dropped a bit to regular friends perhaps, and I have no real “bestie” contender. No one to just talk about my life with in passing, at least not outside of proximity situations. Some of that is the nature of adult friendships and life intervening, some of that is just the type of blue introvert that I am.

While Andrea and Jacob will always be my bestest of friends by a factor of 10, that’s not really what I’m talking about. If I sat on my butt, did absolutely nothing, tried to arrange nothing, just drifted along on Facebook etc., maybe the occasional blog, generally be passive / responsive only, my level of interaction would be pretty minimal. I’m not at the top of anyone’s speed dial to do something, particularly as I prefer 1:1 stuff rather than large groups.

This isn’t exactly new, though. Outside of my late 20s, when I had the windfall of close friendships, I’ve always been the instigator. During previous “inventories”, one thing I recognized was that I didn’t really have much in the way of guy friends. So I made a concerted effort on and off for about 5-8 years (depending on how you count them) to organize more outings with guys. I tried to organize what I called MMMMMM. Mid-Month Movie Madness for Men who like Meat. I tried to get a bunch of guy friends to go out for wings and a movie. Or drinks and a movie. Or dinner and a movie. Rarely could I get more than a couple to even nibble, and often no one would show. I tried various forms of that outing, maybe a bit more variety, a monthly dinner or something, no movie. Added women to see if couples would come. I could never get any sort of traction or critical mass. Eventually, I listened to my dark passenger’s advice and took the hint. I stopped trying. Every once in a while, I get this idea of doing a wing night at the house to try different Epicure sauces, get a bunch of guys together to hang out on the deck, nosh and natter, joke around. Maybe it’s a longing for the carefree days of my youth, where a bunch of friends and I would joke around at the house. Or hanging out at UVic. Maybe it’s just nostalgia. My dark passenger likes to point out it’s hard to be nostalgic for something you never really had, but I can delude myself occasionally. I wonder without resolution if I truly want that group of male friends or if I want to be the type of guy who has that group.

I feel compelled to say again that this is not a pity party. This is not “woe is me”; it’s just the reality of the connections I do or do not have. It’s not a slap at my friends; I’m not singing “Call Me, Maybe”. While the phrase “it is what it is” may be annoying, it’s also relatively accurate.

Where I go from there is part of the long-term planning. I could reach out to those close friends I have now, try to convert them into a bestie, find more time for them and ask for more time, try to expand one of them into the type of relationship I mean, but that’s not really quite right either.

I hate to rely on the outdated wisdom of Dale Carnegie or the simplistic psycho-babble of the Nike approach to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) of “Just Do It”, but the common wisdom out there is relatively linear and mathematical.

1. More interactions with people = more potential to find people with common interests.
2. More people with common interests = more potential to find friends
3. More friends = more potential to find close friends
4. More close friends = more chances to find a bestie
5. More chances at besties = more chance to make the connection I crave.

It’s a popular if simplistic model. Not quite “if you build it, he will come”, but a similar philosophy. And I tried it somewhat with astronomy. I joined RASC Ottawa. Attended meetings in person, volunteered to be the Star Party Coordinator, attended executive meetings, joined national committee, remain as the auditor for the financials, etc. In short, I got involved. And I got to level 3 of the math equation. I made some friends. Not any real close friends, but some good ones. I am not sure that I really have the personality that attracts people beyond that, I never have. It’s one of the limits of the model. If you go back to the Dale Carnegie method that looks like a used car salesman, I can find opportunities, but I can’t convert them into full sales. Astronomy might not have been the best choice, though — you tend to do a lot of it alone in the dark, it’s not truly a “group” event, although some others have made lifelong friends through the hobby. Others, not me.

Yet maybe I don’t need to. Maybe if I shift the current model from 10 / 20 / 10 / 0 / 60 to simply 15 / 25 / 20 / 0 / 40, that’s a better balance than I have now. I don’t really need to convert them to a bestie; maybe I just need more diversity in my interactions than I have now…more interactions, a few more regular location-based friends, a bit more time with close friends, and more freedom for Andrea and Jacob from their energy vampire. I can’t control if I make more close friends, but I can control making a better targeted effort.

One thing that I can watch out for though is that the activities that generate those interactions with others should probably be “ends” in and of themselves. In other words, going back to astronomy, I will do it because I like astronomy, and that’s enough. If I get more friendships out of it, that’s a bonus. I probably won’t end up with people regularly going for wings and beer to hang out, but that’s okay.

I just have to make sure I see the glass as half-full, not half-empty.

For the blue energy (analytical, introvert), I have more than my share of hobbies to focus on.

For green energy (intuitive, introvert), I think I need to siphon a bit of yellow-green energy over to the green a bit.

For red energy (analytical, extrovert), I’m going to siphon off a bit of yellow-red energy to get myself going, but it might take longer.

For the yellow energy (intuitive, extrovert), the current model really doesn’t work for me. I have to push more of the “creativity side”, I think.

I’m not sure this is the post I originally intended, but it is the one I ended up with when all was said and done. I am not sure yet why, though. It just is.