Won my tennis match today 6-0, 7-6. First time with the new grips (backhand and forehand the same with huge topspin). My forehand was awesome. My backhand was horrendous. I told him he should hit to my backhand in the second set, which he did. It was so bad I'm thinking of going back to the drawing board/changing my grip to something not quite so extreme.

Today was my first match in almost a month (they have a layoff before the indoor season starts). My elbow didn't hurt thankfully. This was with my Prince Graphite Classic Longbody (28inches and 100 square inches) with natural gut strung at 50, but possibly starting to loosen? Didn't check to see today. Ball felt very good coming off of it. Forehand was huge. Court next was some good doubles and they commented a few times to each other about it. (I hit a few ROS winners that were harder than anything Roddick or Sampras did at that exhibition recently.)

Think it was my 7th match in this league. Have won all except the very first.

Serve was good today. Noticed I started throwing the ball ridiculously high and that was actually working. Had a more consistent toss... Also keeping my elbow pretty straight on the serve. For me that seems to be important.

Previously tried a gamma polyester at 31 (in my prostaff 6.0 85) and my elbow started getting tender. So, no polyester. Probably no Ashaway Crossfire either, though it's on its way.

Today I played a german guy getting a PhD in something, previously played a guy from China getting a PhD in Physical Education... also two guys who are engineers and another who's a sociology professor, finally some high ranking guy at the FBI.

So my wife is at a time in her life when it's a really good idea to avoid drama/stress. And suddenly my parents are going overboard on the drama and stress. I've asked them nicely repeatedly as I don't want my child to have schizophrenia and they've completely brushed aside my requests and done their best to cause trouble.

So telling my dad that my sister's husband secretly bought and is hiding a porsche while he is paying for their groceries is a reason for my mom to go ballistic (she knew already), calling me a demon, etc. I'm the bad guy. I'm horrible. I've destroyed the whole family forever. I'm just like Frank. (my biological father who walked out when I was one.)

And my wife is equally to blame for my actions. My sister threatens to get her kicked out of the fertility clinic she has eggs stored at because I told dad her husband was basically stealing from him. And... that's our fault to, that our sister threatens us and isn't speaking to us. She additionally fabricates a story I'm abusing her children.

Dad says just make up with her. The family matters more than anything!! I should risk jail time to be around these people I haven't really spoken to at family gatherings in many years simply because we have absolutely nothing in common. He dismisses jail time talk etc. Completely belittling what I feel.

 I'm so sick of their drama. Don't want to think about it. Don't want to write about it... Just have completely and finally had enough. I think it's worn me down slowly over the years. Taken away IQ points. Made me just want to forget everything.

Then my mom gets mad at my wife for not getting my sister a birthday present. This is the sister, again, who threatened to get her kicked out of her fertility clinic and fabricated a story that I was abusing her children and who hasn't spoken to us since.

And then my father asks if I can help him put solar panels on the roof. Fine, but just not this week as I'm on vacation and will be away.

...but can't I just cancel my weeks vacation so I can instead spend one evening putting up solar panels for him...? Umm, no. I can't. I'm not going to cancel my weeks vacation to help you one evening. I can do it when I get back. "You won't do it this week?" No.

Then mom calls two days later while we're on vacation, "I heard the whole conversation. How could you treat him like that? Blah, blah. You're awful, etc." Thus ruining our vacation as we're left stewing over how they treat us.

At times have gotten along... I guess. Have managed to convince myself they're ...basically OK. Could be worse. But that when my wife is pregnant they would get so extreme with one drama after another has really made me rethink things. Maybe it's just more me that's bent over backwards to get along with these people.

Ultimately neither values what I think, who I actually am. My mom "loves" her "son". An idealized version of her son. Not the actually me. She doesn't really like anything about who I actually am.

Things that stick out: Lately how they were about me playing tennis when growing up. I was crazy about it. And would practice and practice till collapsing. By the age of 12 I was extremely good. Not that they had ever even seen me play. Day after day I walked a couple miles to the courts. They never gave me a ride. Never even saw me play. The people who did were amazed by my game. I put pro-level pace on the ball when I was 12. And... my strings started breaking. And I'd go weeks at a time without getting them restrung because I didn't have the money and they weren't helping. Finally I broke my racquet from hitting so hard. And I went a month or two without even a racquet when I was 12 or 13. The only tournaments I got to play in were they couple I could walk to or get a ride from someone else. (I won at least one and beat the highest ranked player in the state in another. I never had a ranking as I didn't get to play in enough tournaments.)

I would let me aggression out on the ball. I'd dream of hitting so hard the topspin would sent the ball into the stands after it hit. I dreamed of winning wimbledon. And I never had a chance. All that drive, motivation and determination. All that hard work. Just wasted because I had parents that just didn't give a damn.

When I tried out for the high school tennis team the coach pretended that I wasn't actually there. Went over everyone's serve and then told them to go here or there and play with so and so. "Coach, did you want me to do anything?" "Did I ask you to do anything? I must not want you to do anything if I didn't ask you to do anything." Then he walked off leaving me there and ignored me the rest of the practice. I don't know why. Maybe because I was friends with a really poor kid who had a bad reputation. I know how it works in high school. If you speak to unpopular kids instead of properly ostracizing them, then you become unpopular too. But I'm just not like that. So maybe it was that.

So there I am. Ignored. 13 years old. At this tennis tryout. Just waiting for my dad to pick me up. When he comes I tell him what was done to me. He asks the coach. The coach ignores him too! And that's that. My miserable excuse for a father does nothing more. And that's that for tennis. So much for that dream. That's that except for the bitterness I still have 28 years later. It's almost like he fucked me up the ass. I mean, I kind of hid the memory from myself for a long time because it was so horrible.

Parents did nothing.

I remember I wanted to quit engineering after working at Toyota as an intern. Mom literally screamed at me that I'm insane to think of such a thing. Dad about the same attitude. It didn't matter how incredibly miserable I was. I guess I could have changed majors despite how they acted. But I hate quitting things. Thanks in part to their attitude though I continued to put myself through almost ten more years of misery before I finally started all over again and became a nurse. So now I get to spend the rest of my life underemployed. 3 degrees is enough, even though I'm just using the two year nursing degree. I have my parents to thank.

They've ignored who I actually am all my life because they just don't really give a shit. I've been a fool to continue to keep them in my life.

Rambling stupid letter I won't send: Remember when you screamed at me that I was insane for considering changing majors out of engineering? Do you know I think every single day about how I'm underemployed and how I ended up that way? You know what else I think about a lot? Joe Muto ignoring a 13 year old kid at tennis tryouts. I practiced 3 hours a day every day. I dreamed of being a professional tennis player (and with the right support absolutely would have been one, nothing I have since seen makes me doubt that.) and how my parents did nothing about it. I stood there and cried while I waited for dad to come pick me up. I told him what happened and neither of you did anything. That memory is so awful to me I kind of buried it for many years because I couldn't stand to remember that it really happened. Everytime you or dad does something ridiculous, you know what I think? All the hopes and dreams I had, I really never had any chance. It makes me sick how futile it all was. How could I for example learn to properly interact with people when the only male adult I had to learn from was Tulasi? With that to learn from, how was I really going to go to school and learn to interact with other kids, etc? When he tells me to cancel my weeks vacation and instead help him with his roof, I think to myself, "I never had any chance in this life." And I think that over and over and over again. All I wanted to be.... I had no chance at all. I have bent over backwards to get along with you people despite how unhappy you've made me. Despite how you've dismissed everything I've ever thought and basically just ignored who I really am. And so... now that my wife is pregnant and I've asked you to stop causing drama because the stress is bad for the baby, what have you done? It's almost as if on a subconscious level you want to kill my baby. Thanks for ruining the last vacation we are probably going to get for a long time.

I was thinking to stop having a single alcoholic drink each day because I was feeling less creative. I know though that the lack of that little bit of alcohol after a few days I get an unfortunate edge to me. Can get stressy about work. And I guess maybe it causes the above also. Possibly.

Anyway haven't been running much lately. Really my best 5k time was still way back when I only ran twice a week and so finally I've been going back to that. Otherwise playing tennis. Trying to get past some tennis elbow issues and figure out how I want to string my racquet/s.

Here recently put natural gut in my prince graphite classic longbody 95 at 50# and kevlar/babolat add... something at 35 in my prostaff 6.0 85. The prostaff hits incredible on the groundstrokes with these strings. Although it hit pretty great groundstroke with the previous strings also... The prince longbody hit pretty well on the groundstrokes. Not quite as good but OK enough. But the longbody has more pop on the serve. And that's the most important thing. Not sure if it's the strings or the extra inch of length. Will eventually switch the strings for them for comparison.

...bought a string meter and it turns out the kevlar hybrid is actually strung at 50. Bastards. Second time they've just randomly done whatever. Now looking at buying my own stringing machine.

Ran 12 miles in about 130 minutes. 10.7 min/miles for the first 95 minutes I think. Maffetone. Heartrate did wander into the 140's near the end. Maybe I averaged 145 or so the last 20 minutes. Pretty easy run though. Felt capable of going much further.

I had the elliptical on a decline so I didn't hit my knees on it. Switched to an incline (and stand further back) and my 2 mile run went from 14:25 (no improvement for three weeks really) to 14:15 and now 14:10. Otherwise I'm now just doing one 2 hour run at maffetone and 2 hour elliptical also at maffetone.

Decided to hit a two handed forehand so I just don't have to worry about tennis elbow hopefully. Also thinking to do hands backwards (like a left hander) and also hit overheads with two hands, lol.

Read 1st book of new Fitz/Fool trilogy by Robin Hobb. Cried.

Wish I had more time. Don't have time to work, do sports, do music, have a garden, write stories and see relatives/friends. Not even close.

Started playing tennis again. Hadn't played in over 10 years. My one racquet says it was last strung in 2001 (wilson prostaff.) Joined a league. Played my matches with a ripstick extender 800 (great name).

First played Daniel B (slightly catty effeminate sociology professor in 30's) and lost 6-2 6-2. Hit a ton of errors playing indoors on a super fast court. Understandable to lose when first playing in over ten years. He was a dinker though. Pretty sure I'd destroy him now.

Then played Art R (nice guy, environmental scientist in 20's). Overweight fellow who hit a lot of unforced errors. We played with brand new balls that were pretty dead straight out of the can, I guess because the can had been left in a hot car for a week or so. (Penn's). That helped me on the unforced errors. Think I won maybe 6-4 6-2.

Then Chi C. (Asian FBI guy in his 50's). Very much a dinker who very rarely hit unforced errors except he couldn't handle my serve. I forfeited 6-4 6-5 as I pulled a leg muscle. I was up 5-3 in the second set when injured. Played impressive at times but hit too many unforced errors. If I had just hit easy slices and ran him, think could have easily won as he wasn't really very mobile. Played at local college courts. Saw Kenny K who I played with a bit 25 years ago. He's been constantly playing ever since. Still only average.

Took a week off and bought a ball machine. Then played Travis S (early 20's engineer). Liked this guy's game, the least dinky of the bunch. We played indoors and I basically blew him off the court. 2-6, 6-2, 6-2. He did strain a neck muscle and that hurt his serve. But when his serve was good it wasn't any big deal anyway. My serve was bad the first set and then awesome the last two. Virtually no double faults. I'd guess hitting 120's... 130's ?? Maybe ten aces. Though my placement needs work. I was hitting huge forehands. I used the ball machine once or twice before this. I think it very quickly is helping me.

Then Buddy M (athletic guy in his 50's). This guy had not much of a game (dinker). Also showed up with one tennis ball in pants and no shirt, lol. But he could run. And actually his serve was really good in the second set (had a weird backwards spin (not an american twist)). I won 6-1 7-5. Had a weird meltdown in the second set where I lost 5 games in a row. Then won like the last 16 points straight almost. Except for those 5 games, just destroyed this guy.

Then Yang S (an athletic PE major). This guy really took a rip at the ball. Tried to put a lot of top spin on it. Kind of a nice serve. Good movement, spin, consistent, although actually quite easy to return. And his ground strokes came nice and slow also really. I had tennis elbow this time. Started to feel the beginnings of it against Buddy, was pretty bad this time. Could barely lift a water bottle to drink in between games with my right hand. So I did a lot of dinking. Lots of slicing. Though not really an issue on the backhand side. Also the balls were incredibly fast (wilson titaniums) so was trying to be careful. He actually hit to my two handed backhand a lot. Which normally would be smart as my forehand is huge. Don't think he realized I was having trouble even lifting my arm. And I did hit the topspin forehand hard here and there. Ultimately he hit a lot of unforced errors. I blasted too many winners to say I dinked him to death, but I was kind of dinky. Prefer to think I mixed things up and he couldn't get a rhythm. 6-4 6-1.

Should take a rest now cause of my arm. Actually it's both my shoulder and my elbow. Trying to dampen vibrations by adding weight in the neck area via duct tape. Against Yang S was the first time I tried it. Not sure if it didn't work or my arm was already so softened up from hitting 200 serves plus the ball machine the day before with the new racquet I bought (Prince Graphite Classic Longbody). Read a lot about racquets/tennis elbow. I guess I need a heavy racket where all the weight isn't just out in the head. So attempted to modify racquets as they're all made too light. Really want a 14 ounce racket. Added about 3 ounces of tape to the ripstick in the neck against Yang (bringing it up to 12 ounces). Previously had only added weight in the head where it wasn't really dampening. Just putting in in the neck really gives me all the power I need. Added a bit more tape just above the two hand grip. And  added cotton balls and nails inside the handle (about 2 ounces) worth. This brings it up to about 14 ounces. Now will rest up a bit. And see if I can get past this....

Had a week off and did a lot of maffetone but since back to work can't run as much and really slowing down at my maffetone HR. So decided to get back to the really long runs. At least two hours twice a week plus the elliptical for two hours once a week. Then a short fast day.....

That was last week. So I did a 140 minute run but just did it at 2% incline the whole way instead of half/half 0%/4%. My weekly fast run wasn't good. 2 miles in 14:26. Previously did 2 in 14:35 but kept going for another half mile.

It could have been that I wasn't used to such a long run and it just took it out of me a bit... but no. I had my PR after a 3 hour and 40 minute run which was more than an hour longer than I'd ever done. No, what it was, was that I ran slower. With the 2% incline I started at 12 min/miles where previously I had been doing some 10min/mile running at the beginning.

So... I decided to do all my running at 0% incline (with a bit of elliptical thrown in). Was curious to see if my hard run would even be faster if I spent so much time running relatively faster (while still at maffetone). So instead of 30 to 40 minutes at 0% and then 30 to 40 minutes more at 4%. I started just going 60 to 100 minutes at 0%.

...and within a few runs I'm only going 10.5 minute miles and slower to beging with instead of 10min/miles for 3.5 or 4 miles.

Why?

Probably because I've suddenly doubled the amount of running I'm doing at 0% incline. NOT because I'm neglecting "hills".

Soooo.... Going to reduce the 0% incline running a bit and patiently increase it. But instead of incline running was thinking of spending the rest of the time on the elliptical. Although the elliptical may be breaking, resistance suddenly changed to very hard on me. Actually though that more simulates waking up stairs, which is more useful.

So whatever really. Being slower at 0% incline at maffetone is most likely just a short term effect because I'm suddenly doing twice as much of it. Surely? But getting rid of 0% incline running earlier, which caused my hard run to be much slower, was not a short term effect. I suspect that would have been a long term trend.

So it's complicated. And I could be quite wrong. Making sure to do a lot of time on the elliptical to simulate incline running just in case taking that away was actually the problem. It could be something entirely different I'm not thinking of though.

In other news I got a tennis ball machine which is kind of wonderful. I would have been a contender if I had one as a kid. (Or someone willing to do drills with me. Or if I had been smart enough to get someone else to do drills with me.) So I don't know. The negative is it takes a while to pick the balls back up and start over again. Getting a metal tennis basket, hopefully that will help.

Used it twice and already finally hitting a one hand topspin backhand decently well. Actually less unforced errors than my forehand. Also changed my backhand slice grip. Hitting it really well now.

Just about finished my second pond. Going to add hooks, etc and put a net entirely over the first. (Something seems to have killed three koi, would be nice to not worry about such things.)

Haven't played cello at all for a long time. Any day now going to get back to it...

Reading The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman. Book three of Magicians trilogy. He's underrated. Really not much I can criticize, like his stuff a lot. Underrated because it's too intelligent. It's not that intelligent, but fantasy fiction has got the bar very low these days.

Did my hard run a day early as under 140 I seem to be slowing down last day or so. Had done 3.5 miles in 35 minutes (on treadmill with no incline). Today after 6 minutes at 6mph HR was 143! Think my anerobic system starts getting undertrained maybe. So decided to run hard instead. Did first two miles in 14:35 and kept the pace for about another half mile. So, a good improvement. That's 15:05, 14:44, 14:35 and did another half mile. Can't complain.

Elsewhere in life, who cares?

..bought a tennis ball machine. Suspect I'm going to enjoy the hell out of that. (As long as it works correctly.) Have wanted one for almost 30 years. Love the idea of trying to hit the same shot over and over again. Can mess around also with a one hand backhand. A left handed forehand. Mastering putting away blobby no pace crap from dinkers. Something I used to really enjoy and I officially have the time now to get back into it. Also joined a league.