LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 5 No. 7
Nick’s LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 5 No. 7
Shit got real.
THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION
Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks. Weeks filled with MANDATORY FUN, discoveries about allergies (and lack of), time away from work when I was excited to be alive to days back at work where I hope to not wake up to avoid work. The fall time is the best time, where temperatures are favorable, leaves are beautiful and the slow death of the living world outside matches my soul.
In follow-up to last issues NON-EXCLUSIVE NEWS about award winning author Mindy Mejia's new book being available Aug 2023, I am formally starting the write-in campaign to the developers of Write 'n' Fight to include her as DLC.
(video, click to watch)
Countering last issue's FAKE NEWS about cats, here is a big ole TRUTHBURGER.
(video, click to watch)
It is not often you get a gift at the Dentist office, but I was informed at my last checkup that I have 4 less teeth than most people. LOOK AT HOW WELL I HAVE OVERCOME THAT STRUGGLE IN LIFE.
Now that summer is over, I can have a very long bullet point about some of my entertainment highlights. TV - Pistol was...a version of the truth, but was still good. Peacemaker was great and I'm looking forward to season 2. Ojisan to Neko (live action) was amazing and weird, even by Japanese standards. How to Build a Sex Room was consumed in a 24 hour period. Good to see friend with name of Sean Jones in the credits for his work doing the 3d models. MOVIES - Brian Wilson - Long Promised Road was super disappointing and not worth my time, same with the Ratchet & Clank movie. Boo. Watched Reality Bites for the first time and wow was that a time capsule of a movie. I'm just a little young for it to be my experience, but I could relate. BOOKS - Dilla Time was a very fair portrait of J. Dilla. They did not gloss over his life or deify him, which I appreciate. I read a fiction - Are Snakes Necessary? which is part of the Hard Case Crime series and written by Brian De Palma. It was great junk food.
This might be the best movie never made: Pretty Woman starring Willem Dafoe
Stories like this drive me crazy: Gen Z Never Learned to Read Cursive. I never learned to whip a buggy either, but look at what I've done WITH 4 LESS TEETH.
Also, if you don't have a subscription to The Atlantic, consider it. So many good stories and columnists there. I'm getting my $5 a month worth. Their daily newsletter is super solid, you get access to the magazine and you can feel good about clicking on all the links to The Atlantic that you see in your daily doom scroll.
THIS IS THE END OF THE INTRODUCTION.
3 THINGS THIS WEEK.
ITEM THE FIRST:
TAKE ME ON YOUR MIGHTY WINGS TONIGHT:
As covered before in this newsletter and obvious to any boy coming up in the 80's I love the movie Top Gun. I love it for the planes, I love it for the tower buzzing, I love it for the journey of self-discovery it leads people to. Basically a perfect movie. 5 stars way up.
During the pandemic, we had some people over to watch it because OBVIOUSLY IT IS GREAT MEDICINE FOR SAD TIMES. During that time I convinced Melonie that we should play the Top Gun theme song on the inevitable day that we have people over to watch the sequel.
I was SUPER excited to see the sequel, but then the pandemic hit and it was delayed, then the pandemic was "over" but fuck if I want to sit in a theater.
As the home release of Maverick came closer and Melonie was less likely to play the song (because FUCK IT IS HARD), I had one of my thoughts that Melonie is quick to recognize and regret...WHAT IF WE ASKED PEOPLE BETTER AT GUITAR TO PLAY IT and you can play the rhythm part? It was a nice way to offload some burden and pressure on her. Then I immediately thought, what if we covered THE WHOLE SOUNDTRACK and named the band "MIGHTY WINGS" (in tribute to the 2nd best song on the soundtrack)? I immediately fired a text to FRIEND OF THE LIFESTYLE Wade with my idea and an invitation. He did not hesitate to join in. Then we needed a singer and BOY FUCK do I know someone with a voice, FRIEND OF THE LIFESTYLE Kristin and when I saw her in person I gauged the interest and she was in...
The stage was set for a dramatic reveal during our group viewing of TOP GUN: MAVERICK (which, WAS MOVIE OF THE YEAR, 10 stars way up, thanks for asking). I setup the Plex server to push a trailer in front of Maverick and waited for it to run. MY SECRET WAS FUN.
Thus, I present to you....MIGHTY WINGS~! Minnesota's #1 Top Gun Soundtrack Cover Band. We are tuning up the band to play all of the soundtrack, in order, before a viewing of Top Gun next fall. Now, to book a venue...
ENJOY.
MIGHTY WINGS Coming Fall 2023.
ITEM THE SECOND:
I WILL TEACH YOU ABOUT FUN AND FEELING$:
A few months ago one of the email newsletters I subscribe to gushed about a podcast, I Will Teach You to Be Rich. Generally, I avoid personal finance things like the plague. It is a big interest in my life, but most PF things are targeted to an audience with a lot less knowledge than me. That is totally fine, there is a shocking lack of basic knowledge about money because everyone is so fucking scared to talk about it. But, unless we talking about SEPP/72(t)'s you ain't telling me anything I don't know about.
However, the pitch for this one is that it is not about the nuts and bolts of finance, it is about the emotions people attach to money. I listened to one episode and I was hooked. It's like a couples therapy session, but focused on money. The host, Ramit Sethi, is pretty good at listening to couples, not berating them over spending $5 on a latte or making a budget and instead figures out what the emotional issues are behind why people horde/spend/worry/save money. NOW, I will warn you that he is definitely a sales dude and he is pitching you on his product, which is him and his books/programs/etc., but past that it is super interesting to see how much baggage people carry about money.
This is a great sample episode - Episode 40. “We’re worth $5 million, but my wife nearly canceled our trip to save $200”
Listening to episodes like the above really forced me to think about how I handle money and what baggage I bring to it. Obviously since I hate my job more than anything in the world, I (and we as a family) save a ton of money towards retirement. We save and save and save. Not that we live a life of asceticism, but we don't act on most impulses. We have had a rule for years between us that any purchase over $100 should be discussed. Even now that we make 2x what we did when it was established, we still hold to it.
Ramit pushes people to think about "their rich life." Picture what you would do if money was not a concern. For some people that is buying whatever they want at the grocery store, for some it is traveling x times a year, for others it is always tipping 30%. It has been quite the hardship for both of us to dream about things we would want that we don't have. I think part of that is how we are wired and part is that we both grew up in houses that struggled with money. We both focus more on experiences, but I hate to travel because I know I will have to come home and work twice as hard to make up for being gone for a week. It is HARD for us to create a "bucket list."
Ramit advocates a "conscious spending plan" where you partition out your income and set aside a portion for guilt-free spending. This is something foreign to both of us, so I decided to launch a BOLD EXPERIMENT starting in September: LAVELY FAMILY MANDATORY FUN BUCKS. This is a replacement for my FUN POINTS system that should allow for more "fun." I made some fake printed money we use to log purchases or spending that we would not ordinarily pursue because it brings us guilt and we share what we did with it at the end of the month.
For me, the guilt comes from non-optimal use of money. You've read this long enough, you know I like to optimize and math out everything I can. This extends to money. I will spend an inordinate amount of time to save basically a rounding error on my paycheck. It makes no sense. LAVELY FAMILY MANDATORY FUN BUCKS are part of the solution.
With Melonie's permission, I will now share what we spent our fun bucks on.
Melonie spent most of her money on hobby things. I won't speak for her, but I think she bought things that she didn't have a need for because she had other things that were "good enough." She bought a bunch of stuff for her sewing hobby: a rotary cutter, giant cutting mat, chalk pencil, pattern weights and some brushes for ProCreate.
I spent mine on:
Beautiful curtain lights for our bedroom. They are purple and blue and twinkle and serve no purpose outside of the pure joy I have seeing them.
A wrestling PPV from a local company to support them.
2, YES 2, cinnamon brooms from Trader Joes. I have wanted these for years, but they serve no purpose outside of smelling good for a limited amount of time. AND IT IS GLORIOUS.
Ramit's new book/journal (to pay him back for the entertainment and help)
My favorite - I got $40 of cash in $10's from the bank and I've been handing them out to people on the side of the road when I see them. This is something I've long struggled with because I'm not convinced handing cash is the best way to help people. My charitable contributions are matched by my work, so that is a much more OPTIMAL way of giving, but fuck it. This is about not feeling guilt or the need to optimize, so buddy, you are getting that $10. Spend it on a meal or a cigarette, I'm not going to feel guilt that I enabled you if you choose the cigarette. FUN BUCKS.
Serious reader question - What would you spend fun bucks on?
ITEM THE THIRD:
YOU PUT YOUR WEED IN IT:
Many people have heard my tragic story about being allergic to marijuana in most forms. Smoking it makes me puff out, applying it topically makes me breakout. With the newly changed laws about edibles going into effect I figured I would give it a try and see what happens. The project had two goals:
1) Test my allergies to see what exactly am I allergic to. Is it the plant or the cannabinoids themselves?
2) To get high
During our adventures for COFFEE FEST 2022, Melonie reminded me she had her ID and we were just a few blocks away from the fancy boutique Nothing But Hemp in Saint Paul, since we are bougie white people. We bought some Indicia with Delta 9 and HHC mixed. The employee suggested I try some 2mg microdose stuff due to my allergies and I said "No way buddy, FULL POWER! Ride or die, bitches."
I wanted to try the mellowing stuff because the last thing I need is more stimulation. It was a Wednesday, which is my AEW night and I figured as a tribute to my longtime former roommate Willis, I would get high and watch some wrestling. We took the gummies about 20 mins before the show started. Melonie sat next to me as I watched and for the first 80 minutes we were just fine. Then, in about a 2 minute span it hit Melonie like a truck. She was just zoned out and telling me her feet were tingling. After 2 hours and 20 minutes, AEW was over and about 2 minutes later it hit me hard. GOTTA STAY STRAIGHT FOR WRESTLING, RIGHT?!?
So, what do we do high? Earlier that day we passed a billboard for a TV show called LEGO Masters and we laughed at how that was a thing, so I decided to pull up an episode and we watched it. It was a terrible, terrible show that could only make sense if we were high.
Then, with the pioneer spirit in our hearts and loins, we decided to be the first people EVER to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 high. We made it about 40 minutes into an episode and got sleepy. The next day we tried to resume where we left off and had no clue about the previous 20 minutes of the show, so we backtracked a bit.
Overall, getting high I give 4 stars up. I'm curious to finish off this bag. Might be a good Sunday afternoon/night thing so I can take the edge off my anxiety about going to work the next day.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):
None. I miss your correspondence.
GRATITUDES:
Melonie for remembering her ID this time.
FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EARHOLES THIS WEEK:
For some reason the other day I was feeling the need to listen to Flavor, a local band in the 2000's that I had some friends in and probably saw 100+ shows of theirs.
I spent a lot of time at Bunkers, the Fine Line and all over going to Flavor shows in the mid-2000's and listening to the albums again made me remember those days all over again. Shocking to think that it was almost 20 years ago.
Anyway, if you knew them or not, the music still holds up. Wade Linkert is a hell of a songwriter.
THIS IS THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER
I CONTINUE TO FIND WAYS TO QUANTIFY AND CALCULATE FUN TO AVOID THE UNCOMFORTABLE FEELING OF JOY.
MAYBE MONEY IS NOT THE PROBLEM, MAYBE IT IS ME?
THANKFULLY 40 HOURS A WEEK ALL JOY IS DRAINED FROM ME.
THAT IS ALL.