7/26/26 – The Hundred
What’s wild is my QL’s on my lower left side! When they start to get spicy and tingling with hot and burning sensation, I know that a change is coming my way! It’s interesting too, my body today felt very full, active, and extremely tuned in on the outsides of my legs, from all the dancing, wiggling, and jiggling I did last night! That amount of movement is absolutely astounding, and an amazing way to really get everything moving!
I tried to do the Hundred for the first time while up and getting in to extension. For a bit and thus ended up going really well!
7/27/26 – Abdomen & Pelvic Changes
Yesterday I challenged myself to skip going #2 after lunch, and just endured the pain for a while. It was weird? I don’t really know how to explain it all, but my body simultaneously got fuller and more active, the longer I was able to endure this sensation of having to go? It’s so weird? I don’t understand? Why is this relationship there? Sensations down in my pelvic region are not easy to understand.
Trying to make sure I give myself some time in the AM to get back into my writing habits. It’s been very busy working on the house, and I’ve tried to keep things afloat, but boy is it tough! Hard to always stay afloat!
I really have to go this morning but I wanted to lay down for a little bit longer, so bad! It’s rough when you wake up and always gotta use the bathroom sr some point in the night. Ugh.
Okay, the breath. I was trying to inhale into my low diaphragm and into my deep abdomen while keeping my muscles contracted? Would this help loosen em up?
PT went well today! I was able to get up off the ground with no stools and just my hands! From there made it up into the braces, did some prep work, and was working on some spinal rotation! Unreal! This felt great! Fly by night! Freewill! Some rush songs playing in the background??
I got up in the standing frame for the first time in what feels like forever! I need to be up in here more often!
To try to stand taller, I thought about what Therese was saying, dancers and stretching all the time? Well, I was curious how Ballet dancers develop their strength, and also their flexibility? I think I have some work to do, because I want to understand how they’re over to do it?
7/28/26 – Shuffleboard Stick?!
I’m going to keep working. My body is definitely still responding. It’s not always easy, time conducive, or fun, but I’m really trying. My body I’ve been working on letting go, relaxing, and melting into position. Honestly last night in the standing frame was interesting because it was the first time up since the trip! That’s like a dang month here at home!
I’m thinking of ways to get my legs stretched out in bed on my own? Shuffleboard stick? Probably would work?
I really am feeling my glutes and quads fired up! Last night up in the standing frame I tried to relax fully extended, and then I lowered, and squeezed for 5-10s, and then I relaxed and straightened out. I really need to get my body used to and being safe up in this position!
Life can’t just be about the endless pursuit of happiness, right? Like duty, honor, loyalty, those all aren’t always happy or enjoyable? Right? I dunno? I’m not sure? It’s interesting because the pursuit of happiness is always talked about as an ideal state, but is it? What are the trade offs? What do we lose out on?
I’m, not, exactly thrilled, on days with so little movement. I’m cold, I have goosebumps, my body tingles hard, my feet tingle, my butt tingles, everything gets tight. I’m a slave to this body. I honestly hate it.
I’m just crying right now. My eyes and vision had suddenly started to jump all over the place. I’m just not in a place where I can actually feel useful. I guess even picking up the food from a restaurant makes me feel more useful than this. Right now I’m cold, chilly, I have a hoodie on and it’s 75 inside here. I’m so messed up. My body doesn’t know what to do and my mind is lost. I’m not sure.
It’s 10:20pm, my legs are doing some incredible amount of stabilization!
I’ve been leaning into them while feet on ground, brakes off, moving my legs back and forth, and my knees are feeling so much more turned on and woken up! It’s kinda incredible!!! This is a ton of late night activation, and I can feel how much more even my abdomen is as well! This is great!
7/29/26 – Piecewise Functions
The feeling of my WHOLE calves! The activation in my whole legs?!? Man, I am tired???!?! Why am I so tired this AM? All the micromovements yesterday evening???
It’s almost like a piecewise function? My brain? Feeling pulled to the future and drawn to the past? Funny, isn’t it, what writing does to us? And our thought processes? Almost feels like I don’t fully form a thought until I say it or write it down on paper? What is this phenomenon? How do I understand this better?
Flannery O’Connor’s version, often quoted: she said “she wrote to discover what she thought, not to say what she already knew.”
Some fun thoughts on this:
• Writing-to-think / aka-epistemic writing — the idea (going back to writing theorists like Peter Elbow and Janet Emig) that writing isn’t a report of a pre-formed thought, it’s part of how the thought gets formed. The sentence doesn’t describe the thought; the sentence makes the thought specific.
• Externalized cognition — the broader cognitive science idea that thinking isn’t purely internal; putting language outside your head (speaking, writing) lets you work with it in ways pure interior thought can’t. You literally can’t hold a half-formed feeling and inspect it the way you can hold a written line and inspect it.
These are all areas I want to explore more, because that’s what I feel like I’m doing with my writing? It’s weird because it is almost like I’m observing my recovery and mind reshape and reform from a distant point of view? Like an astronaut viewing over the earth from the space station, or from the moon, potentially? I just think it’s something I’d like to learn more about!
Getting addicted to movement? Eh? Therese goes, “you know, morning night, rain or shine, you gotta get yourself moving all throughout the day! You really do need to get yourself addicted to movement.” Honestly, I don’t think she’s far off. I feel like I’m pretty close, but some days it feels mentally tougher to remember all the different ways I can move, I should move, and exercises I can still do! It’s wild because I know that the more I do, the better I feel! It’s almost as simple I feel as it is literal! Just MOVE!
How do I stop myself from getting so fatiguingly tired / sad tho at the end of the day? Eat more? I guess? Maybe? Is that it?
7/30/26 – Side Planks
I can feel my body loosening up! I can totally see what Therese was talking about, my body really is getting that much more mobile! Now I gotta keep up the core and strengthening! Also side planks! Next on the list to prioritize!
Not great when it takes you ~20 min to get in the standing frame at the end of the day. It’s 9:52pm, and my body is just tryin’! He’s had a long day, didn’t get a chance to get in the standing frame, and I can feel it. My body is active, but he’s just tired and tight.
I’m pretty sure when I was trying to relax my body and legs in the standing frame, I fell asleep. And my legs changed? Weird?
7/31/26 – House Work
Okay so it definitely feels like I’ve got a belt on my hip of some sort around my waist?! Things waking up forsure! These legs and last night, that was so interesting! I wonder what that was all about? More work to do today, forsure!
It, bums me out, when I do other activities in the week, but not for my body. It doesn’t make my body and mind feel good. They don’t feel in unison. I feel distant, separated from myself when I don’t get em going together.
Had Tyler the electrician over! He was a huge help on this Friday forsure!!!
Callie and I got more of the floor done! Back on the miter saw and table saw! I’m honestly needing more and more practice on the tools I have, I really just need to take my time, and give myself the chance. It’s not always easy having to relearn EVERYTHING. But it’s a helluva lot better than the alternative? I think?
Sigh. Let’s try again tomorrow. Let’s get some rest.
8/1/26 – The Dilemma
I feel like I’m in a funk of some sort? I can feel such significant changes happening inside my legs, but I don’t know how to always be doing “life work” and “body work”? Why can’t this line up? Why can’t both work together? I feel like they don’t need to be at odds? Everybody else when they are working on the house are using the heck out of their legs? But why can’t I? Can’t I try to do at least something more with them?
I’m rushing around till life’s not fun? Why does it have to be like this? It’s supposed to rain today, we have t gotten rain in what feels like weeks. Maybe I should embrace that weather change as well?
I’m feeling all the various squeezes and pulls from everywhere in my legs!? I was noticing yesterday how my legs are helping hold me up with Ike in the chair more and more, and I noticed something too? When I don’t look at my feet, they seem to kick in more? Almost like if I try to just use them without telling them? They are trying better? I was noticing that while moving back and forth from the table saw and miter saw yesterday? My body was really kicking in with all the activities, it’s just I need a chance to use my legs more and more in extension!
Hopefully after all these house projects wrap up a bit, I can get back in my routine, in the braces, the Exo, the Handcycle, shoot maybe some other projects or something?!
My knees have been ramping up activation and tendon/ muscle activation, so I gotta keep it up! It’s slow but things are working more and more! Same thing with my hips and low back, and my quads!
Trouble partially is too, I don’t have a spot here at the new place to get on the floor yet? And get off the floor on my own? Maybe the Den? Maybe I can work on some upper and lower body work in there? Get stretched out before the day?
Is loading your joints kinda, like, painful? Like, as in jumping from a high height, punching something, jumping your bike, skateboard, you name it, is this something that’s like, a real thing? As children do we need to learn how to incrementally load our joints more and more, to tolerate the pain and teach our muscles that this is something we need to be able to withstand?
The Astronaut on Earth 
Leave a comment