I don’t know how good my audio will be because there’s a lot of noise behind me.

Liam’s practicing for a pit he’s in and he’s playing tracks from the musical Into the Woods that he can play piano along with.

Somebody’s vacuuming behind me.

It’s loud in here.

So hopefully all my audio processing is working and you can hear me because, oh, I have so many important things to share.

That’s not true, listener.

He has nothing important to share.

Your daily Lex.

I missed you last week, of course.

I missed rambling for five minutes about nothing of any importance.

And I was on a cruise.

It was great.

It was a very lovely cruise.

We had rainy weather the very first full day out.

But other than that, it was at least sunny.

And, you know, there was one full beach day where it was a little cooler and more overcast than many beachgoers would prefer.

But I love the fact that I wasn’t drenched in sweat by the time the day was done.

But it was really cool.

We saw dolphins.

We saw turtles.

We saw manatees.

Oh, the huge manatees.

And we saw some island that a one time drug lord had taken over as his home.

We did some snorkeling.

It was all very cool.

Good stuff.

And, you know, some relaxing sea days.

I read four books, which is a lot for me in a week.

I did a lot of working on my lines.

It’s also very funny when my kids run my lines with me because the lines are one third of the time about sex.

So that’s a fun thing to have your kids run with you.

But seriously, it was a good time.

I enjoy it.

And there was a bummer, which wasn’t a bummer at the time, but it’s a bummer in retrospect.

And I’m still thinking about it.

I’ve talked about this before and I’ve thought about this before and I still don’t know what the right answer is.

But the bummer is this.

I enjoyed myself on the cruise, by which I mean I ate plenty.

And I came back significantly heavier than I left.

Now, some of this is going to be water weight, whatever, those things that can go away pretty quickly as I immediately, you know, starting yesterday, even before we left the cruise ship on our yesterday breakfast, I ate normally.

I had egg whites.

I skipped all the pastries.

And, you know, I was tracking my calories, but I didn’t track my calories the whole week long.

And boy, did I gain weight, like a hilarious amount of weight.

You’re thinking it couldn’t be that much.

Like, how much did you actually gain?

And the answer is, oh my God, so much.

When I returned from the cruise, I weighed roughly 13 pounds more than when I left.

Now, I don’t think I truly gained 13 pounds.

Like I said, I was down three from yesterday to today.

So let’s see how it goes over the next couple of days as my body gets back to normal.

But still frustrating.

And like, it’s really conflicting because I’m glad, you know, that I got two desserts.

I was also proud that I turned it down when the waiter brought a third dessert.

He was like, oh, I got you this one by accident.

Do you want it?

And I was like, no.

And he couldn’t believe that I was turning it down.

But I didn’t need three desserts.

I’m not a monster.

I’m a two dessert monster, not a three dessert monster.

And yeah, I did go to the gym every day on the cruise.

I also, to my horror, learned I kind of like weight machines.

I was sure I wouldn’t like weight machines.

I’d much rather just use dumbbells.

And honestly, there’s still quite a lot to be said for not leaving the house.

And I’m certainly not going to get all the weight machines, the one we need to have a full, robust weight machine set up at home.

But I am going to check out some gyms nearby and see if I like their weight machines because that’s how much I like the weight machines that I experienced.

So I got to figure that out.

I literally, there are three gyms all within driving distance that I consider doable.

Like if it’s fewer than 10 minutes each way, that seems reasonable.

I find them all annoying in different ways.

I haven’t gone inside any of them.

And they all have totally different pricing models.

And they all have obnoxious pricing models that they have in common.

Like it’s $9.99 a month plus a $50 annual fee and a $40 setup fee.

What the hell?

Just give me the actual monthly number, you weirdos.

But whatever.

I’m going to experiment.

I’m going to look around.

What more can I do?

And it is funny to go from eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, to tracking calories instantly.

And it largely means that, boy, I am hungry.

It’s going to be fine.

Everything’s fine.

And while I had been rebuilding and adding calories, I’m now going back to my 1,800 calories until I get things under control because, wow.

Did I mention I gained a lot of weight?

It’s definitely put a negative damper on the end of my vacation.

But it’s fine.

And so figuring out what the right way to handle that is because part of why I like cruising and part of why I like vacationing is eating all the things.

And, like, it wouldn’t be the same joy without enjoying all those foods.

However, it does dampen, like I said, the joy in retrospect to have put on more than 10 pounds.

So I got to figure that out.

I don’t know.

I mean, obviously, the answer is to be more of an adult, right?

To say, hey, I’m going to overindulge today on the cruise and not tomorrow on the cruise.

What if they have great desserts the next day?

Figuring that out is not the part I’m good at.

So it doesn’t make me worry long-term about maintenance, like maintaining my weight, because I’m not always on a cruise.

It just seems that way.

But I do need to figure out how to handle cruises better because it’s dumb to come back and then have gained that much friggin’ weight.

So anyway, that’s it.

Happy Monday.

And tomorrow’s Veterans Day, so thank your local veteran or your remote veteran.

Just thank veterans.

Goodbye.

Lex.