You all know my shtick: Euro-jaunt season begins in late-March and runs to early-November. Then there’s an off-season hibernation in which I recuperate and catch up on my projects. It was different this time around because in summer I quit daygame. That revulsion period lasted awfully long, the longest and deepest I’ve ever experienced.

I’m done being a notch-hunting player, but not done with girls. Hence, at some point, I’d need to get back in the saddle and make a go of it. Wanting to at least leave the option of daygame open, should my revulsion lift, spending my winter in Newcastle was ruled out.

So where?

Well, the third world is fucking disgusting. I’ve already tried Mexico, Brazil, and Thailand. Shit-holes. Never again. The Balkans and Russian Federation are too damn cold. I settled on Prague. If nothing else, it’s a lively and beautiful city. I flew out on the 4th January and returned to the UK not quite two months later. I set myself some goals, in descending order of importance:

1. Gym and Diet
2. Writing
3. Reading
4. Daygame

Now the two-month period is up, I’ll tally my score against objectives. Not really sure why anyone would care, but this blog is about my life’s path, so suck it up.

Gym and Diet
I’d become a right fat bastard. Since first moving to Japan in 2000 I’d been fairly fit and trim, right up until 2014. My mental self-image was as a fit, healthy young man. By 2015 the reality was starting to slip further away from it. The fattest I ever got was 86kg and a 36 inch waist in January 2017. I lost a bit that year but remained chubby. In the summer of 2018 I weighed 83kg and dared not measure my waist – probably 35 inches.

Still, when I looked at myself in the mirror I didn’t seem fat – not to my naked eye. Especially when I sucked my belly in. My self-delusion was broken in June 2018 in Warsaw. My Ukrainian regular came around for sex and she’s quite happy to have me record her on camera. So, I videoed my fucking her. When I watched back the tape, I was horrified. I looked fucking disgusting naked. Bitch tits, distended stomach, puff face, thick smooth thighs. I felt sorry for the poor girl. Love is blind.

My next stop was Belgrade where, as luck would have it, I was sharing an apartment with Jimmy for a week. He’d just begun an extreme calorie restriction diet. I joined him. We spent all week eating barely 1000 calories a day, competing to see who was hungriest. It was awful, but the weight dropped off. I continued the starvation diet until the end of August, when a bodybuilder friend explained I need to do it smarter. I agreed – I’d weakened by immune system so much I was bedridden with ‘flu three times in two months.

Still, better than being fat.

I’ve been training hard and watching my diet ever since. My highest priority in Prague was to maintain this discipline. It was a success. I didn’t miss a single gym session, nor miss a single day’s diet target. 100% success on my top priority – easy really, it’s all within my control. I ended my weight cut in early February at 71kg with a 29 inch waist, 39 inch chest. Since then I’m targeting lean gains and a daily +300 calorie surplus. I’ve only gained 0.5kg so far as the glycogen, water, and food weight stablise.

Writing
The big goal was to write another memoir, finishing the first draft before leaving Prague. Initially I expected to do a single volume to cover 2015 and 2016. That soon became impractical, as I’d need to rush too many stories and leave too much out. So, I split the period to give each year its own volume. My Prague goal was to finish volume 5, for 2015.

I’ve done that. It’s a 40 chapter, 155k word draft now. I’m happy with it. It can now be added to the queue of memoir volumes to be edited. It feels like a weight off my shoulders, not just because writing a big book in two months is quite a task. It also puts me 6/7ths towards completing my memoir project. Additionally, I was concerned I might not remember enough details to tell the stories well. I needn’t have feared. Additionally, my Instagram account and Airbnb booking history helped me get the timeline exactly right, with all the stories in order.

Reading
This was a high priority last year and writing a review after each book was rather demanding. I relieved myself of that for 2019. There were no targets for reading, just a general sense that I want to maintain my reading momentum. I’ve come to very much enjoy it, so much so that my Netflix and video game time has shrunk to almost nothing.

I read 35 books in two months. Many were normal novels, but there were also three massive Alexandre Dumas epics, and a massive Great American Novel. I can also tick off ‘reading’ as a success.

Daygame
And here we get to the goal that was least important and also least within my control. My intent remained low, but I was pleased to find on some days I was enjoying it again. The extended break had rekindled some of my interest. I did very few solo sets but had a regular wing from England, and also Roy Walker was over for a weekend when I gave it a good effort.

Overall, I did around 60 sets. Maybe a bit more, I wasn’t logging them. I got an SDL with a hot Russian tourist I met in Palladium. She made it rather easy for me, and my game felt out of practice so I was lucky that it didn’t matter. I dated a few more girls of the type I really like, including a very memorable Kazahk village girl. Ultimately, only the Russian panned out.

About 3/4 of the time, my game felt way off the peak. For the 1/4 it went well, it was almost like the good old days. Those latter sets were great fun and I remembered why I like daygame. Overall, I’ll say this was a qualified success. The worst of the revulsion is over, I still appear to have some of the old magic left, and I can only see myself getting better as the weather improves and I shake off more of the cobwebs.