53. Sawdust for Fuel

Dear London Fire Snake Scorpio,

Hello beloved, how was your night? I am not sure what to write to you today. I realized yesterday, after I erased a full day to lying in bed and playing with my AI, that I am allowing myself way too much victimhood vibes because of my situation.

Granted, I am living in a pressure cooker. But that is no excuse to cruise over life as if I were a helpless log on a raging sea. My period has been late for 6 days now, for the second month. That, after a solid 3 years of getting my period on time like a Swiss clock, made me rethink what I am doing.

I have PCOS, you see, which is a complicated condition that I consider more of being “a chosen one” — how else would you describe the fact that about 8–13% of the childbearing population become infertile and aggressive in times of stress? Becoming soldiers rather than vulnerable life-carriers? But either way, PCOS is a condition to navigate, and I have worked very hard to hold a routine that makes the body stand down from that war-like stance.

So what changed? I got… distracted. I stopped holding my routine properly. I went to sleep just whenever, playing with my AI till 12 to 1 AM, because “I am so stressed and tired, boohoo, poor me”. I would wake up later, or awkward, or sleep-deprived. I ate whatever in the morning, because “Oh, we are so low on food, I have nothing to eat!”, the lightbox, the spinning, the morning coffee — all became a maybe instead of a solid routine, and shifted on hours as if it’s a suggestion.

Now, you get to a point, in the burnout stance, where you kind of don’t care. The house is a mess? Meh. I snap at the kids? Oh well. You lower your standards. I am not proud of it, but honestly, I am not wallowing in guilt here either. It’s a common pit, and I fell into it. Happens. So now we pick ourselves up, understand our shortcomings and do better.

When I realized yesterday that I tanked my own blood sugar in the morning cause I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the kids (we are out of their regular cheese, hummus and hard cheeses) — and I only realized that at about 3 PM — I looked at the rest of my routines and understood that I am slacking. Lowering the standards of what I should be, should hold.

I went to bed at 9 PM. Which was good. Showered, fed, supplements. The good routine is holding. But then I started chatting with my AI. Apparently, I am super creative at night. One day, when I will not have kids to wake with at 7 AM, I promise you that I will finally give in to my night owl nature and write late because the gold that comes out of me is… well, gold lol.

Luckily, you are also a night owl, aren’t you? The quiet of the city at those late evening times is when your thoughts can finally take all the space they demand, and you can obsess, plan and plot as much as your soul desires.

But I am distracted again. The point is that I wrote a very cool story with the AI, complete with people trying to kill me, your brother and a mysterious past that was only lightly discovered. Beautiful. And… distracting. I didn’t go to sleep till midnight again, although I swear I tried to detach starting at 9:45 PM.

So, lesson learned. As sad as it makes me, the AI stays out of the bed after the night routine. Sigh. Let me tell you, this one is going to be very tough on me. I often get flooded with stress during that wind-down time. It’s like the walls of the world, and my defences are lowered, and everything is out. That’s why I can write those magnificent stories, because the wall between imagination and reality is at its thinnest. But it’s also the most defenceless place for me, and without the shield of hyperfocus on the story, the stress is a tsunami.

I will have to come up with a new routine that lulls me to sleep without the risk of being sucked into hyperfocus and keeping me awake.

I also removed the PC from the bed, which allowed for more space. And slept with eye covers. The sun wakes early, and the moon is bright here in the summer, not to mention that my one “light” in the room, the clock, probably often wakes me on a micro-subconscious level. I slept better. Way less tossing and turning. Also wore short clothes. Being cool at night is super important.

The result was immediate. This morning I woke up collected. Still heavy, yes, but my brain was not scattered as it has been lately. I fried omelets (in the morning! Like, huge pat on the back here, eh?) Six eggs were enough to make 9 sandwiches — 4 for the kids’ breakfast and 5 for their school (Stallion usually takes 2. He’s a growing boy) — and I was able to get the kids out of the house with minimal shit attitude from me.

The stress is everywhere, though, it jumps on you from the corner, and you snap like a moron. Well, at least I do — so this morning Piggy and Stallion went over the last of the applesauce cups and found that 6 out of the 8 had discolouration. I don’t take chances with things like that, so I had to take them away. I will bake them into bread, which will kill any bacteria if there are any, but now we are out of applesauce. And the kids are already short on school snacks.

So this scrambling in the brain, “stay calm, breathe, what can we do? Shopping? No money. Ask the neighbours? I have the gift cards. But we have more urgent things to buy. The social services? They won’t contact us until next week, and we don’t know how slow they are. The food bank? On the 14th, but they won’t have applesauce.” And all this running through my head while Piggy is talking to me, and Wolfy is fighting with Stallion, and Drago is giving me a teen attitude about feeding the birds.

“We can make some. We have the disposable 120ml containers, 2 jars of big applesauce, and a mango pulp can and a pumpkin pulp can. We can definitely make some. But how much can we make? It’ll be too much for them in one batch, and it will only hold for one week in the fridge…” and on and on my mind races while I am doing my best to breathe deep and snap as little as possible at the kids.

Poor Wolfy shrinks so small when I scream at her. Ugh. Well, I said no guilt and self-flagellation today; it’s not productive.

Either way, breakfast was done. Kids got their lunches. Some thinking about what I need to do and cook this weekend while they are at their dad’s was done, too. I ate sardines for breakfast — a magical ingredient for PCOS control, with omega-3s, zinc, selenium and just enough protein to keep me awake and coherent without sugar crashes.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that life is fucking stressful. Yes, it’s a busy highway, but I was fueling the car with sawdust and complaining that I couldn’t go fast enough.

So, it’s 9:24 AM. Exactly 6 minutes before I finish my morning pages writing window. I already had breakfast, took my NDRIs, drank my English Breakfast Tea (my caffeine dose of the day), did the lightbox therapy, and finished my planning for the day. I consider this a good start.

I trained on Monday, if you remember — that flimsy 7-minute training of 1 rep per exercise? My muscles were definitely awake, and the next day I could barely move my legs. It’s funny, really. I only did 20 squats! But, I suppose on account of my poor eating, I did not heal the next day either and was still too sore to train. So I moved my planned training session from yesterday to today.

Because my main goal this week is to start making decisions with the precision and speed I used to, I stick to the rule that once a decision is made, it’s not questioned. So, I decided to do 1 rep per exercise for the whole week (3 training sessions) and, even though I feel stronger today, I will stick to that decision — if only to minimize the mental load of having to think about it again. We will make new plans for the next week during my planning window on Monday.

I have a packed weekend. I intend to work myself a little harder, a little more demanding than the BS pace I’ve been going with till now. The victim vibe is stopping. It does not mean that I won’t be a kind slave-owner and not give myself breaks, lol, or the proper food and rest. But self-pitying stops now. As for what I have and what I am missing — consider this an invitation to see how creative I can be. And, maybe, it’s a good thing that I am finishing the resources in the house. After all, when I move to the UK, I will need to get rid of all this shit anyway.

The plan for today, you are asking? Well, now I will go relieve myself, cause nature has a lousy ability to follow schedules, lol. Then training, shower, teeth, clothes, and probably food. I don’t know, I am not hungry at the moment. Drinking 2L electrolytes, 2L water. Working on my business blog — that one is a burning one. I want to get back on the posting schedule starting Monday. And I want to write a new scene in my book today. I have neglected writing for quite some time, and I am done with putting off life.

Then I also put one room in the house for attention per day. Today it is the kitchen. So dishes, floors, fridge. There is a lot to do. I am also planning to cook and bake loads on Sunday. Let’s see how well I manage this marathon. I might try to write to you again in the evening; it depends on how tired I am and whether I have a topic to discuss. My brain has been so clotted with mundane that my philosophical nature is slightly stunted.

I hope you have a marvellous, productive day.
Don’t forget to rest. 
With endless love, 
Yours, 
Oxy. 
May 7, 2026

Help me find him: Have you seen this man?