Nick’s LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 8 No. 8

THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION

Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks. Weeks of turning the furnace on. Weeks of dealing with the joys of homeownership. Weeks of flying on the internet with a 1 Gb SYMMETRICAL fiber connection. Weeks of rehab (no, no, no) for my shoulder. Weeks of going to a pickleball themed birthday party, because that is a thing now.

• Ok, let’s address this IMPORTANT ISSUE. Did you all see K-Pop Demon Hunters? I avoided it because I am an old head when it comes to K-pop and this is animated for kids, but I’ve got to say, musically PRETTY PRETTY GOOD. The movie was fine. BUT THE SOUNDTRACK. Solid. Immediately afterwards I read everything on the Internet about it and it makes sense how good it is based on the heavy hitters that produced it and wrote it. Good to see EJAE get some flowers as a performer after being rejected from the performance side of the industry for so long. Two related videos:

The first live performance of “Golden” which is an early and obvious pick for Song of the Year, 2025

My favorite YouTube vocal coach/critic doing analysis and revealing THE TRICKS of the A5 that EJAE hits in the song.

• I wish all those proud patriots that needed guns to defend against a government attacking its own citizens were around. It is almost like it was not about that, really… Chicago And The End Of American Liberty.

• This might be one of the funniest things I’ve seen all year, because somehow being anti-fascist is…controversial?

  Still think Antifa isn't violent? Here's bodycam footage of Antifa founder B.J. Blazkowicz shooting a heroic member of ICE who was just trying to protect this great nation. Thank God we have Blazkowicz's girlfriend in custody.

  — Hard Drive (@hard-drive.net) 2025-10-09T02:13:33.058Z

• Award for the COOLEST SHOES OF THE DECADE award goes to Bena for these amazing shoes. I wish they made these in adult sizes. Twinkle Toes: Twi-Lites 2.0 - Dreamy Wings. Must have some pretty cool parents to get these too.
• Favorite podcast of THE LIFESTYLE, Planet Money, is doing a series about making a board game! Yearly subscription earned, my friends. Come for the board game content, stay for Wailin Wong’s laugh. The most adorable laugh in all of podcasting.
• In the grand tradition of having too much space for too few people, we are renting an entire school house for our annual TURN THE KEY vacation this year: Wilson Schoolhouse Inn. 12 acres, 5 beds, 2 people. What is wrong with us?
• I’ll save my AI rants for another time, so here are two articles I enjoyed instead: Are we living in a golden age of stupidity? and The Intellectual Obesity Crisis.

ITEM THE FIRST:

100K THE HARD WAY: They say the hardest thing is to make your first $100k and get that snowball started and yes, I believe that to be true. What is hard in a different way is biking 100k. After my Donut 60k (see Vol. 8 No.6), I thought, I could probably keep going if I didn't eat donuts on the way. I chatted with other BIKE NERDS to see what I would need to consider for that long of a ride. I was told to carb up the night before, bring drinks and food. I did some of that.

I set out to find a circular route that would get me to 100k (or 62.14 freedom miles). I plotted a course that took me along some of my favorite trails to get in/out of Eagan, including a new one I found going to/from Oakdale a few weeks prior. I went through downtown St. Paul and eventually to my halfway point, White Bear Lake. Getting there was nice. St. Paul has a nice trail system. Once you hit White Bear though, you can fuck right off. I stopped at the lake and admired the view, ate a protein bar, drank 11 oz of coconut water and left. Getting out of there, I got to be on narrow shoulders on 50 MPH roads and all sort of not fun places. Once I was in Maplewood and back, everything was good again.

Overall, I would like to say this was an incredible achievement or something that was super hard and I overcame, but it wasn't. It was only about 15 miles longer than a bike ride I did a few weeks prior. When I got home, I sat down for a little bit, applied some Japanese cooling pads on my thighs and they worked like magic. I showered and went to go claim my prize of hot chicken. So, I can say I did it. I'm super glad I didn't have to stop and use a bathroom or get injured, but...meh? I have much more fun on my 30-40 mile rides to local airports. I did route by South Saint Paul airport on my way home, but no planes were in the air.

Anyways, here is proof of my existence and accomplishment.

The route:

ITEM THE SECOND:

MY WEAK ASS SUPRASPINATUS: Well after 46 years I finally could not avoid needing to go to physical therapy. For over a year I've had an issue with my right shoulder and doing wide overhead lifts. My gym motto is unimaginatively "No Pain, No Gain" so I just push through it. Hurts to do wide grip shoulder presses? Too bad. Hurts to scramble eggs? Too bad. Hurts to put a shirt on? Too bad. Waking up at night in pain? Too bad. With the joy of American health care, I need to make sure something is worth the $5,500 deductible before I see a doctor. This finally made it to that level.

After $864 for 3 x-rays and a 10 minute chat with a doctor, it was decided everything looked ok, so I needed to go to physical therapy. Apparently my sexy shoulder and arm is hiding a secret, my weak ass supraspinatus. This is an a pretty common injury for people because the shoulder is not optimally designed. I've been going for three weeks now and starting to see improvement. I have things I do twice a day and I've modified a few things in the gym, but the day of pain free egg scrambling is hopefully coming soon!

Getting old is terrible.

ITEM THE THIRD:

BURNING OUT IS EASY TO DO: This is something I hesitate to write about, but when does that stop me from oversharing in my dumb newsletter?

It may be no shock to you on the outside, but I am burned out. I've said kinda jokingly, kinda not that I'm about 10 years into it. And that is less of a joke than it used to be. I think the past year of having vacations cancelled hours before their start, being told not to take vacation for a few months and now being made to come into the office three times a week just fully pushed me over the edge. I've been in the office most of this month and I have literally not talked to anyone outside of saying "hi" to the security guard because spoiler, I don't work with many people in America.

I was having one of those weeks where for some reason the topic of burn out came up in multiple areas of my life in podcasts, magazines and other things I consume. I had to take a hard, honest look at myself and the symptoms of burn out and boy is it sobering.

I was listening to an episode of "Money with Katie" and she had a guest talking about "mini-retirements" which was like the pinnacle of white privilege discussion, but she said this and it really stuck with me:

So as a good rule of thumb, everyone’s different, but a good rule of thumb, I see if people have done hard continuous work for about 15 to 20 years and haven’t had a substantial break, they’re probably burned out. And this is kind of the sensation of outrunning an avalanche. It works until it doesn’t, and then one day it doesn’t and it just catches up to you. And so one of those indicators is I try to have people imagine what was your personality energy motivation like before that season of hard work, maybe when you were 20, were you excited after work to go eat dinner with your friends? Were you excited about new hobbies? Did you want to take new classes? Were you excited to meet new people? Was that energizing? Did you have creative ideas at work of like, oh my gosh, we could do it this way or we could do it that way.

Or what if I did this with my life? And that burnout was kind of like, it just starts to steal that motivation and it starts to steal that creativity and that gumption to where your friend’s like, Hey, I’m going to go do a painting class. And you’re like, oh God, yeah, yeah, it’s been a long week. That sounds fun. It doesn’t sound fun at all. Just sitting on your couch sounds fun, but you’re not like, oh my gosh, I’ve always wanted to take painting. And that seems amazing, and I’m so excited about that. Just that enthusiasm and that joy and that, oh, this feels so good in my mind and my body that starts to, like I said, that I just thought middle aged people were boring. They didn’t dream big dreams and they weren’t ambitious and enthused and they didn’t see the joy and the wonder in things.

And I’m like, oh no, they’re just tired. They’re so tired. We’re just so tired. And I get it, but I’ve seen just in real time, people in their mini retirements, it’s like they’re rolling back the clock after a month. They feel if say, I’m 42, they feel like they did when they were 39 after six months, they’re like, oh, is this how I felt in my early thirties? Maybe after a year they’re like, oh, this was the vibe that I had at 25. And I think, like you say, we developed that baseline and we rationalize it other ways. I’m just more realistic now. I just have responsibilities now. I have things that I have to take care of. I can’t be excited about a hobby that somehow in our mind, paying a mortgage means we can’t be excited about a piece of art. Those things aren’t correlated. You can pay a bill and be really excited about listening to a new band. Both of these are possible to coexist if you’re not burned out.

That was like looking at a funhouse mirror.

Let me be brutally honest about my day, Monday through Friday. I wake up as late as possible to still be on time to work and the first thought I have is “this sucks. I wish I didn’t wake up.”

I drive into work now three days a week, go squat in the same 6 ft x 10 ft isolated glass box that I’m only supposed to be in for an hour, but fuck that. Otherwise I'm in an open space with 8 other people all on distinct other meetings with just massive amounts of crosstalk.

Immediately upon my computer connecting to Teams, I have 1-4 people instantly message me about something that is likely outside of my job but because I’ve been there so long, I know the answer to. I open Outlook to about one hundred emails from the past 16 hours, about 20-40 need a response or I’m tagged in.

Then the panic attack starts. I never knew what panic attacks were until THE TERRIBLE THING, but now they are almost daily. I start getting cold and shivering, but then sweat. Kind of like the flu. My heart races and pounds so hard. So hard. That goes on for 15-120 minutes.

Starting at 7:30 or 8:00a I’m generally in back-to-back calls with people in India that are relying on me or pushing me to help them with their job. Not necessarily things I should know, but do, again, because I’ve been there so long. Or they are pushing me to get things done faster. We’ve clearly communicated timelines, which we have all agreed to, but suddenly someone needs it faster. Faster, faster, faster and somehow I’m supposed to make that happen. I’m sometimes tearing up, crying or shaking/twitching from the stress.

I often have a hard time understanding communication because no one can know I’m on the spectrum. I have to ask for clarity in situations where the truth is not being told or politics are being played. I have to constantly restate things because the way I communicate does not cross borders, is ignored or is being distorted for political points. I have to continually recap the same things to multiple people because for some reason, I'm their nexus and everyone is in their silo of work, unable (or more likely unwilling) to do the work and communicate with each other.

While I’m in these meetings, I’m simultaneously having 1-3 chats with other people or getting called into other meetings or escalations. It never ends. It is not unusual to be 4x booked at the same time. Until 11a when India logs off. Then I have time to actually do my job.

I spend the afternoon in a fog doing pretty much anything other than work, time allowing, just to try to recover some mental energy for time with Melonie. Once 2p hits, I take my lunch break and workout then stop working promptly at 3p, unless there is an emergency of some sort, which generally happens on Fridays.

The rest of my day is spent just trying to human. Finding the mask to wear for the situation. Trying to be a good husband. Trying to be a good friend. Trying not to yell, scream and meltdown at every little thing. Trying not to let my twitches take over and betray my mask. Trying to not intentionally drive off the Cedar bridge. Maybe I’d get a week off for that.

I’m just in a cloud. Everything is so muted. The joy and light cannot permeate my sadness cave. I feel so so alone and sad. Sure there are moments of joy. Times with FRIENDS OF THE LIFESTYLE or seeing cool shoes at a pickleball birthday party for example. It is not all bad, but it all goes through this thick filter.

Melonie generally goes to bed around 9:30p or so, then I have the next two hours to myself where I can take off my mask a bit, shake it out but then the night time panic starts. Eventually, my brain will realize tomorrow is yet another day on the treadmill and a briefer panic attack starts. My brain fights sleep because it knows. It knows the reward for sleep is more pain. Sometimes I wake up at 3 or 4 AM in a panic. Sometimes I go back to sleep, sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I have days or entire weekends where I cannot cope. I call these my “catatonic days.” This is a new thing. Days where I can barely function. I just exist in my sadness cave, showing up when needed but not really there. It is extreme work just to make eye contact with people. This is another new thing in the past year.

I hate it. I hate it so much. I think my company has benefited greatly from my spectrum ways. I do an excellent job based on reviews, long-term stock awards, extra bonuses, extra perks, etc. I don’t push buttons, I’ve never asked for a promotion and essentially work on the same thing/area I’ve done for 23 years, which helps them retain their enterprise knowledge. It’s not a two way street, which is why I don’t disclose my spectrum super powers. I don't trust them to not ostracize me or use it against me. Just today I was told no accommodations would be made for working from home for health reasons for our team, and that was in regard to someone with a physical condition. Is that legal? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s not like I have a union or a lawyer to fight that fight.

Can I leave? Sure, it’s a free country. I think this is what is the most distressing part of it. We are so, so close to landing the retirement plane. If they lay me off, which they are assured to do at some point, I will receive about a full year salary in severance and benefits. These are not golden handcuffs, but they are good quality silver.

As someone who grew up poor, the first in my entire family to go to college, that is a lot of money to walk away from because I have some feelings. Also, I’m older and age discrimination is a real thing in the job market. We are so, so close to retirement, the runway is in sight and we are about to switch to ILS approach.

I recognize that this is some real privilege talking here. This is the classic progressive and/or liberal trap. "So many people have it worse than you." That is true, but I also have to learn to acknowledge and accept that these feelings are real and valid. Just because I’m not out digging a ditch doesn’t mean my job isn’t real or hard in different ways. Melonie and I have worked multiple jobs for a lot of our lives, we’ve saved and saved and saved to reach this point. We’ve sacrificed and lived well below our means for years to make this happen.

Why do I share this? Honestly, I don’t know. I would tell any of you this if you asked and I have told parts of this story to various people. I think I just wanted to document this feeling and maybe if you are out there feeling something similar you can know you are not alone. I’m not soliciting feedback or wanting responses on this one, but I appreciate your kind thoughts.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):

None. I miss your correspondence.

FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EARHOLES THIS WEEK:

Lily Allen’s new album West End Girl is not the best album of the year. I’m not sure it will even make top 10, but it is the most raw, emotional album I’ve heard in a long, long time.

I’ve listened to Lily Allen before, her first two albums were solid, but fell off afterwards. I had no expectation or knowledge of the content going in to this, but the first song ends with one side of a two minute phone call where she is being broken up with. The next song is about her ruminating on conversations, the next about how distant her husband has become and the fourth has this lyric:

Then you showed me a photo on Instagram
It was how you grabbed your phone back right out of my hands

So I read your text, and now I regret it
I can't get my head 'round how you've been playing tennis
If it was just sex, I wouldn't be jealous
You won't play with me
And who's Madeline?

Then it was like, holy shit, this is the heartbreak and divorce album in real time. The album is unlike anything I’ve heard in awhile. It’s not sad mopey heartbreak like Disintegration or angry breakup like Under the Pink. This is just brutal, raw emotion and hurt, made beautiful. This is art.

THIS IS THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER

THE LESSONS I HAVE NOW IN LIFE ARE NOTHING I WOULD HAVE EVER BELIEVED WHEN I WAS 22.

THAT IS THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE OF THE GENERATIONS.

AT LEAST THERE WAS A MOMENT WHEN WE ALL AGREED NAZI’S WERE BAD.

THAT IS ALL.