I can’t do what I need to do for my happiness, what do I do?

I’m in a quandary. I need physical contact including hugs and kisses, but don’t have access to people who want to have physical contact. As you might imagine, this causes me problems. I need physical contact on the regular, and right now I’m at one for 2021 and not looking any better for 2022.

I try to sublimate my need for physical affection by massage, but TBH that is a poor substitute for the exchange of physical affection. It’s better than nothing, but that’s not saying much. Ramen noodles are better than nothing but living on just the noodles long-term will result in malnutrition, and substituting massage for acts of physical affection will result in the emotional equivalent of malnutrition. And the causes of both are pretty much the same, one is the inability to buy and prepare nutritious food, the other is the inability to find or hire someone willing to provide the kind of physical affection that maintains sanity. Money cures many forms of insufficiency.

And this is kinda short but the post is degenerating into a pity party and nobody wants that.

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Busy day doing nothing

Well after all the emotions of yesterday I just vegged out today. The most effort I put out today was watching the Xfinity series on the toob this evening. It was a good race. Twitter has been occupying most of my time with #DotardDon acting the usual fool. There just isn’t much I can do right now as I’m still waiting on the donor car to be delivered and for the engine hoist of my dreams to magically appear in my garage to remove the engine and transmission from the donor vehicle.

I’m ready to do something, but there’s nothing I can do until I get some pieces of paper with pictures of dead guys on them. I know what I need to do to the engine, I’ll know what I need to build the frame once I get the engine out of the donor vehicle to measure where the mounts go, I know how I’ll get the transmission to shift once it’s in the car, I even know where the fuel tank and battery go. I’m ready and raring to go, but I have no place to go. I can’t even rev my engine because the engine is sitting across town in a rusty minivan. Actually it is sitting two towns over in a 21 YO rusty minivan, waiting for me to come get it. I really need to go there and start the engine and let it run a while to make sure it doesn’t seize up from lack of use.

I also need to write, but lack something to write about other than Twitter and the comics I have been reading. Just to go and do nothing requires buying a $5 bus pass to get there. Problem is I don’t even have the $5 right now to go do nothing (or go to the library or something). We are in that time of the month when there was more month than money. Most of the little side gigs I used to have to scare up a few bucks have dried up, and the ones I still have are not making up the difference no matter how hard I work them. The mobile game I played is gone. The other gigs are paying out pretty much the same. I can’t find regular work with all the abuse my body has been through and because when I get assessed for disability my injuries are considered separately I don’t get any money because I can still “work”. I can’t do any of the jobs they suggest because what they suggest for one problem is exactly what I can’t do anymore because of another problem, then they do the exact opposite of suggesting a job I could do with that one thing wrong that I can’t do because of the first thing.

Basically I have two handicaps compared to what I was. First is my mind is not as nimble as it used to be. I still come up with solutions to problems, but what used to be nearly instantaneous is now a prolonged process. Second is because of the scar tissue around the various things they had to put back together in my left leg there is a lot of things I physically can’t do, like getting down on the ground and getting back up quickly. Getting up from the ground is a major deal requiring room and time. But if you read this blog much you already knew that. I’m physically and mentally slow compared to what I was before the wreck. And I never was much good before the wreck except for mental work. Physically I have always been a slug.

Enough complaining, I need to get to bed and let my aches and pains take a break.

Feeling better but not my best

Things have been up and down physically for me this week, but after spending 11 hours in bed (not necessarily sleeping, just in bed) my back is feeling pretty good. Good as in no pain sitting or walking, and just a tiny pain transitioning between sitting and standing. All in all I call that good.

Last night my brain wouldn’t shut down (again) as I kept on thinking about using the engine/trans from the donor car as a SCCA A/Mod Solo race car. It wouldn’t work from a weight standpoint, as the 620 pound engine and transmission only leaves about 80 pounds for the entire rest of the car, but would work great as far as fitting in the allowed minimum wheelbase without anything hanging out too far or having to add between the wheels. There would even be enough room to put a three gallon fuel cell between the engine and the driver without having my feet hang out past the front axle.

Contemplating the A/Mod car came from thinking about the packaging of the TGS2 fuel cell and electronics as the 32 gallon cell takes up a big hunk of real estate inside the car. There is lots of space on the outside of the frame rails but inside the body for the battery and electronics, so the balance left to right can be maintained while keeping the polar moment as low as possible. Polar moment is extremely important for an autocross car because much of autocross is change of direction from left to right and vice-versa, and polar moment is the measurement of resistance to change of direction. A lower polar moment is better which is why competitors try to get things as close to the center of the car as possible. Autocross is not just grip but the ability to transition from left to right and vice-versa. Interestingly enough engine power is not a major consideration in the equation as cars do not spend much time at speed or accelerating between turns, which is why lawnmower-engine go karts are frequent contenders for low time of the day.

Can anyone tell I’m really getting frustrated with the lack of progress on the TGS2? Not having $$ for parts and raw stock is not helping things any. Not having a viable method to obtain $$ is also not helping things any, PayPal is telling me that so far this year I made less than $10 in donations from the link at the bottom of the page. If you want stuff to read I need to have stuff to write about, and I’m just about out of things that don’t cost money to do. At this point I’m really close to writing about the dreams I have the night before just to have something to write about, and believe me you don’t want that. 😀 Everybody stay safe out there on this long weekend and avoid the drunk drivers.