The Diary – The Diary of The Deranged Writer

Notes to Self XXIV

For those who have been following The Diary since February 2023, you have read my struggles with Steinermania. Almost everything reminds me of the craziest professional wrestler, “Big Poppa Pump” Scott Steiner. I even have a hard time computing simple math because my brain has been conditioned to remember Steiner Math instead.

That’s why it’s been difficult typing my first Notes to Self of 2026. Then again, I had to write this because the leading expert in Steiner Math has said something unbelievably profound on X (the social media site formerly known as Twitter), even if it’s wrapped in typical Steiner promo fashion.

The Recently I

Lately, I have been delivering longer posts more than ever, and I think that I’m doing a decent job of that. Not great; decent. But anyway, the reason behind the mini-surge of lengthy posts is that, after a few years of working in my current day job, I found the right balance between doing what I have to do (e.g., my day job, relearning my skills) and doing what I want to do (e.g., enjoying my fandoms, writing here on The Diary). That balance gives me more time to plan and contemplate, and then put them all to writing here in The Diary.

That being said, I miss writing quick posts, and I haven’t made a new blog series in a long time, so it’s time for the debut of a new one: The Recently. Think of it as a page from a slumbook where I write the recent things I have watched, listened to, eaten, or whatever I have done recently.

Now, let’s begin the first edition of The Recently.

XXXVI: The Nocturnal’s Struggle of Waking Up Early / Notes to Self XVI

If you have been following The Diary lately, you should know that I’ve been making gradual changes in my life. One of those changes is waking up early for work—ideally at 8:00am. I did just that on most workdays after ToyCon 2025, and there were times I even woke up at 6:00am. (That’s a feat for a nocturnal person like me, and even my family is shocked by the fact that I woke up before they did.)

Now it’s beyond the middle of August 2025, and I admit that I haven’t really been waking up as early as 8am lately… and that’s fine.

(Buckle up because this is going to be a long post.)