Men ruin everything

[disappointed_lesbian]

post-format: "html" post-tags: bodybuilding, patriarchy, insomnia, money post-mood: tired

Last night didn't go as planned. I thought I'd finally get my usual good night's sleep (5 or 6 hours) because of the heated throw. The thing seemed to take forever to heat up. When I came back into the bedroom after a while, it was still barely warm. I got into my sleeping bag anyhow, hoping I'd fall asleep as it heated up, but I eventually noticed that it had somehow gotten shut off. I turned it back on, but, by the time it heated up, I guess I'd missed my short window for falling asleep.

OR

I'm just back in one of my periodic and unexplained really bad insomnia periods. The latter seems to be the case, given that I haven't been falling asleep even after giving the bedclothes time to warm up. So I'm going to have to get back on the melatonin for a while. I'm so sick of these cycles, the repetition, the not knowing the rhyme or reason.

There aren't enough hours in the day for me to do what I want to do.

The walking + standing at my desk for most of the rest of the day is destroying my feet. I'm going to have to set this laptop somewhere so I can sit while using it. That's going to be a challenge given that I have neither desk nor chair. I have a box full of books that I used as a laptop desk before I switched to standing full-time during computer use, but I'd have to sit on the floor to use that, and it's uncomfortable because there is nowhere to put my legs and I have no back support.

I have a settee (which I found being given away for free on the street last week), but it would be just as awkward to use as the box. I'd have nowhere to put the laptop (except beside me) if I sat on the settee, and I'd have nowhere to put my legs if I sat on the floor in front of the settee, using it as a desk. I have a weight bench, but I know that moving it back and forth between workouts and home office duty would be a pain in the ass. Quoi faire?

I do most of my work on my desktop, and there's no way I can use that sitting down; the monitor is much too big, awkward, and heavy to put anywhere but on the standing desk. And thinking about where I'd put the keyboard...I use the laptop with an external keyboard as well. The built-in keyboard is too large for my fingers, as is almost every computer keyboard in existence, it seems. Only after years of searching was I finally able to score the child-size keyboard on which I'm typing this post.

And simply using my computers less would be next to impossible given the number of languages I'm studying. I need access to my memorization software (Anki), and looking up vocabulary in online dictionaries is much easier and faster than using my paper dictionaries. Using paper dictionaries is so unmotivating. Plus, I use three different only German dictionaries according to my needs, and my paper German dictionary is unlikely to fulfill all those needs.

These considerations are pointing me in one of two directions: either I need to get the treadmill after all (so that I can study and walk at the same time rather than decreasing my time with one for the other) or I need to get a desk I can sit at so that I can spend less time on my feet. Both of these options involve money I don't have and things I'm not crazy about doing. I was gung-ho for the treadmill option a few days ago, but I imagined that I'd just watch Invidious videos while I was walking. Looking up words, finding and saving images, creating flashcards, and doing other things that require fine muscle control, while walking, seems like it would be physicall uncomfortable.

I'm on my way to a ridiculous number of sets during my lifting sessions. Yesterday, I did 7 regular sets of bench press, and that was before I did the drop set with which I end each bench press session (doing a drop set means continually decreasing the weight and continuing to lift past exhaustion, with no rest in between sets). Because I allow myself five minutes of rest in between sets, my workouts have really begun to take forever, and I'm not looking forward to continuing that way.

To build muscle, however, I need to progress somehow. So, starting tomorrow, I'm going to try resting less in between sets. Getting up to seven won't be so easy if I'm still a bit fatigued from the previous set. I'm not sure how that'll affect my muscular development, however. Fewer sets seems bad for hypertrophy...but more sets of bench press is bad for my shoulders.

What I need is a greater variety of exercises to fatigue my chest. I'm planning to buy a set of dumbbells next month and an adjustable weight bench in December so that I can add some incline dumbbell presses (currently my only incline exercise is the barbell bench press) and dumbbell flys.

Even though I dislike using weight machines, it seems (from several chest-development-oriented Invidious videos I've watched) that machines would be great for me at this point. Fatigue in my biceps, rather than fatigue in my chest, is limiting my ability to develop my chest; my arms (and shoulders, now that I'm doing so many sets) get too tired for me to keep benching: that's the main reason I need a five-minute rest in between sets of bench press. To some extent, machines eliminate this problem (the problem of non-argeted muscles limiting development of targeted muscles); the machine frame holds/stabilizes the weight (instead of my arms doing so) so that I can focus on stimulating the target muscle.

I don't want to go to a gym again, though. The last time I got sexually harassed was in a gym. Men ruin everything.

And the only gym I'd be able to afford is over an hour away, two bus rides away. Travel fatigues me and gives me migraines, so the trade-off wouldn't be worth it unless maybe I went only one day per week. No, I'll stick with my home gym. I'll just have to get creative with my exercise selection.

My legs and thighs feel crazy muscular even though I don't train them with weights.