This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)

Scars aren’t there to loudly announce. I’ve been through more! But rather, they quietly whisper, You survived.

—Marina Miller—

I truly feel that quote says it all.

Today’s Date: Thursday March 03-2020

The Time: 1105pm

The Place: The club in the ATX

Max here,

It’s Thursday night and Coronavirus pandemic is in full swing in the United States. Almost all major sporting events are no long happening, they say there is a toilet paper shortage (why I don’t even know), people are now scammering to get to the stores to buy a ton of supplies. A couple of hundred people so far have died from the virus and where I work just might be in jeopardy.  I just learned that all the strip clubs in Florida are now closed. NO bueno.

This is a dangerous time for me. Not because I might lose my job or because of my health, instead it’s because of the lack of customers that might not visit the club. And more so, all it takes is for one person in the club to get the virus and the chances of me catching it goes up exponentially. And again… I not worried for my personal health, however  if I get the virus, instead I am worried about the possibility of transferring the virus to my mom. My mom lives on the same property as I. You see, I built my house behind my moms house, and one of the things that my mom does to help me in life is to take food to my dog. As small as it sounds, it’s actually a big help. And did I mention that my mom is 85 years old. I expect my mom to live to at least 100, and so I must do things to ensure that I don’t allow her to get sick from the virus.

Now with that being said… My mom is still a very active person, she enjoys taking the bus to the other side of town and do ……..”mom things…. write, talk to friends, think, etc” And my concern is that she could catch the virus from someone on the bus. Not a good thing. So I have repeated to her the need to constantly keep away from sick people and to always wipe her hands with some type of sanitizer.

Now me here at the club…. Well, as we all know, its a full contact sport, so I am having to ensure that I be clear about my boundaries and my interactions with the girls and those around me. Normally I am very giving of hugs and physical care to the girls and friends. However, as of tonight, I have chosen (with primarily body language) to show the girls that I am distancing myself from them. (Not a lot, but a little). No hugs, no kisses on the cheek. Not even a fist bump. I’ll do an elbow bump, hip bump or even a foot bump, but I must ensure that I try to be diligent at not allowing my mom to get sick. She’s fairly healthy for an 85 year old Latina woman. She still mows the lawn….And with an oldschool push blade mower that doesn’t have a motor!!! That’s awesome at 85! She’s my superhero.

Now what about me? Well, I finally got my NMN in the mail. I look forward to see what effects if any that it does for me. Some people say its a great way to combat aging. It’s still a fairly new supplement on the market that doesn’t yet have a lot of human studies done on its effects. I will say this,  I look forward to ensure that I take the proper amount and see how things turn out. Remember one of my goals is to be healthy. And so with that…. the saga for optimal health continues.

Let’s see what else is happening…. Well in all honesty… A whole lotta nothing. Eddie never came to work this week, and Bob only helped me one day this week, and Hector…. Well, Hector never went to do work at the 4plex this week. On the subject of real estate, things have just felt very dead and unproductive this week. A better word is disappointing. But maybe this is what is needed. Life always has a way of doing things for a reason. Maybe it’s what is needed because last week was super expensive. As I mentioned in my last post, Cesar and materials for the corner house financially hit me really hard. This is not good. Luckily I will only need Cesar for one or 2 more days of work. Then I can see about having Hector come in and finish things out. How much money will I need to get that one unit finished out? Truth is that I haven’t done hardcore calculations on it. The reason that I have not done calculations on it is because I have been working on and off on that property for about 10 years and in tandem with all the work on the 4plex and on palm house, so many bad decisions were made that this corner property is still not ready to rent. And in many ways it’s just a money pit. Literally!! I bought it without ever looking inside the house and I knew ZERO about remodeling/real estate. Talk about mistakes. But now years later here’s my thought pattern about this particular money pit…. After all these years and all that fucking money that I have dropped into that property…. why the fuck do I want to sell it now only to have someone else drop 60k into it and finish out a 120k or more property? I’d be a dumbass to let that happen. Plus it’s completely paid off. While for my other 2 properties, I still owe cash on them. And so this corner property, if I can get Hector on it by July then by December or January at the latest, I should have it ready for the 1st phase of rental.

Now let’s see, other than real estate, I finally talked to a guy named David. He is the guy that installed the solar panels on my moms house. And currently at my house there are 8 more panels that have not yet been utilized and have been sitting around for years, and so David is coming over tomorrow to give me a quote on his price to install the final 8 panels. And now after the current 30 something panels have been installed, my moms electricity bill is now pretty low because of the solar panels, however, the electricity bill is for both my house and my moms house. A little over a year ago I decided that I was going to get a loan to put solar panels on my moms house. My mom has always been adamant about paying the electricity bill. And to make things worse both my moms house and my house do not have central A/C. And in the summer things get really fucking hot. We (my mom and I) both have a couple of window units in each of our houses,  but it is only in the bedroom, which means that the rest of the house is really damn hot. So my goal is to eventually get central A/C in both houses, however, again, this is just more money. To the tune of about 12 thousand dollars. (Money I don’t yet have). And once the central A/C is installed in both houses then the electricity bill is gonna hit the roof. which is why hopefully all of these solar panels will be able to make a real dent in the cost of the electricity bill. But first, the idea is this…. get all the panels up and running then make a plan going forward for the A/C units.

Finally Adrian came by the house to give me his thoughts on a design for the YouTube channel. Adrian has an interior design company called Designoloy. Joan hooked me up with him because I told her that I wanted to sit with an interior designer to give me his/her thoughts on how to best landscape the set for the channel. And so he sat with me for about 2 hours and gave me his thoughts about where and what backgrounds to use for the channel. He also said that he knows a couple of people that he thinks might be helpful to my current situation and my future. One of the guys is a business coach that Adrian used for a couple of years when he was first starting his interior design business and the other guy is someone that he knows that has been doing a YouTube channel for several years. On Monday I will text Adrian and ask him to not forget to send me the contact numbers of those two people.

Oh yeah….two other thing happened this week….I finally made it to a toastmasters meeting. It was actually quite interesting. I could see that I have a lot to learn about public speaking and probably most importantly I have a lot to learn about the proper ways to look at public speaking……. in a way that will allow me to put my best words forward in spite of any fear that I might have while speaking in front of a crowd that I don’t know.  Tonight, I am actually going to be emailing a girl named Tracy. She is the one that is in charge of handling the preliminary requests to be a member of the club. and finally, On my way home from the toast masters, I decided to stop by a glass blowing shop. If you don’t know yet, I love art. There are many forms of art, so artsy things peak my interest. And glass blowing has always looked interesting and yet quietly super skill oriented. When you blow glass you aren’t allowed many errors. Glass is VERY temperamental. So I stopped by the glass blowing shop to get a quick look and to ask a few questions. Turns out that they don’t really have classes. Or at least not anything that they consider to be “class” based. Instead it looks like they take on about 2 people at a time. And the classes are pretty damn expensive. Something to the tune of about $300 per week. And for how many weeks?????? The guy didn’t say. And most of all, this doesn’t guarantee that you will go home with anything that you consider worth showing to anyone. So I’m not sure how far I will go with that. But I do want try a basic $60 tutorial of glass blowing. It should be fun. For some reason, things like that interest me.

Well… Now how have my emotions been lately… Honestly, I just haven’t been mentally pumped. As I mentioned, when real estate is not moving forward, I just feel like things have come to a standstill. And I even thought about it recently….. I have 3 properties, with a total of 7 (possibly 8) doors. And so I have a solid 7 doors and only 3 of them are rented, while the other units need a minimum of 8 thousand dollars of remod and as high as 80 thousand in remod. And remember this doesn’t include the completion of my own house which is going to cost about 40 to 50k. The summation….. A shit ton of money is needed…. However, if I can hold onto my job long enough, then when I do get all 7 (maybe 8) doors running, then I will be almost 50% of the way to being able to drop this night gig. And sadly this night gig holds me back from being able to do a lot of personal things in my life. (Things I rather not mention at this moment). But I am hopeful that I will eventually accomplish my mission and all the things on my experience list.

Now I find it important that I try to end on a positive note…. But before I do…. One last point on my concern about my night here at work… Like I said it’s Thursday, and the coronavirus is making a shit ton of noise everywhere. Even the president came out and gave a talk about it. You know it’s serious when the president has to talk about it in a professional way. And did I mention that the stock market is worried, and that schools are closing and that many major events have been cancelled….. So what does this have to do with me?…. It’s simple, remember, I work at a place that is a full contact sport. And if people are worried about being close to other people then the amount of customers will dwindle to nothing and thus NO ONE will make money! This is truly a scary time for me… Especially with the amount of money that I need to pay the IRS. Just wish me luck on this.

So in the midst all that is going on, and in the midst of not having workers come to work, I am at least stead fast that I must keep pushing forward until I break on thru to the other side. Regardless of obstacles, I MUST find a way from no way.

Sending you Love,

Max.