Life of Bryan — 2025

Lately, I haven’t been writing much, and the subjects I have been writing about have been quite political given my limited involvement in the Aussie Federal Election. I’ve realised that I am laughing less, and generally acting like a grown up adult (though my partner Kim might disagree).

And I haven’t written about much that’s actually personal. Or funny. Or self-indulgent. And the main reason for my writing is ME. And ME is an acronym for “Me” and “Everyone Else Doesn’t Matter”.

Post Viral Syndrome

In March I was diagnosed with “Post Viral Syndrome (PVS).” I learned that ‘Syndrome’ means ‘You have a collection of symptoms for which we have no explanation, no medical root cause, and we’re not that interested in you, so we have given this bucket of symptoms a name and called it a syndrome. Now you can leave my office.” The general idea is that:

1. You had a virus (mine was a rhinovirus, yet I had not touched a rhino except in mostly platonic ways 🦏 ⚠️ 🍆)
2. Your body still thinks you have a virus and so it’s still fighting the virus. Stupid body.
3. As a result, your autonomic nervous system is all jacked up and sends you into “flight or flight” mode when a sales clerk ask if you would like a receipt for the men’s purple shampoo you just bought.

The first six weeks I was just exhausted. I would run 5k and have to sleep half the day for the next three days.

This is a striped marsh frog. This image has absolutely nothing to do with this blog. But I really like these frogs.

After April, it’s been all nervous system effects; negative reactions to simple situations. Given time, I’m fine, but a mundane question can send me in a negative space instantly, and I’ll answer “NO” like a petulant two year old even if the question is whether I’d like another energy bar or what the chemical formula is for nitrous oxide.

Apparently PVS can last somewhere between three months and two years (see “we’re not that interested in you” above) and when you cross the six month mark it’s called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (“if it’s not clear we have no idea how to treat this, the arbitrary name/diagnosis change at six months should have clued you in”), unless you don’t have fatigue — in which case, it’s called Chronic Misdiagnosis and Wild-Ass-Guessing Syndrome.

But I’m getting better, so at this point, I have Post Medical Chronic Skepticism Syndrome, where the afflicted patient no longer cares, and by this point in the blog, neither should you.

Yard Work

The best balm I’ve found for PVS is being outdoors and low to medium heart rate physical activity, and yard work seems to fit just perfectly. Normally, weeding would be at the bottom of the “what makes Bryan happy” scale but during the cool Winter months in Yamba it’s been amazing. I still have no idea what I’m doing, but it turns out that if you bury a human body underneath newly planted trees, they grow quite well.

The answer to everything is MORE MULCH. The question is “Do you need more mulch?”

Sleep

One of my coaster items for 2025 is to research my sleep issues and apply lessons learned in the second half of 2025. My sleep efficiency is around 80% which turns out to be really poor. It’s mostly because I wake up 4–8 times every night, with at least one or two of those being wide awake, in the middle of solving some imaginary problem (“How can we arrange mass imprisonment for the annoying”).

The night of my sleep study. Maybe the video will show that several marmots were released into my room and were rummaging around the bed during the periods of light sleep.

While I’m still waiting on the analysis of a sleep study I did at the end of June, I can tell you that having tubes up my nose, having 20–30 electrodes glued all over my body, and having to wear clothes to bed does not result in a good night’s sleep. While I am following as much of the recommended sleep hygiene as possible, it’s a little ridiculous when my Oura ring tells me that 7:45 PM would be a good bedtime. The four sleep no-nos of caffeine, alcohol, late screen time, and religion are not a part of my life, so we’re looking for a sleep needle in a sleep haystack so we can poke the princess if she doesn’t feel the pea.

A short story I wrote a few years ago

Since writing Jake and the Button, I’ve had a handful of short stories somewhere between 0% and 30% finished, and a couple of years ago finally put the finishing touches (ended it’s misery?) on another short story. But then I never “published” it — i.e. put on my blog, which if 1,000,000 people read it, would actually result in me earning $0,000,000,000.00 in cold hard cash, bitcoin, or Chef Boyardee coupons.

Despite it being a fairy tale of sorts, it’s not for kids. But it’s also safe for work unless you read it on my OnlyFans page. It contains no nutritional value. You should not taunt the author after reading it, even if you think it’s mediocre. With no further ado:

The Endurance of Chivalry, a short story by Bryan J. Rollins. Soon to be in a collection called, “10 stories you don’t want to read. Really.”

Mischief

Half way through 2025, I have decided that my life is lacking in mischief. I hope to correct this tragedy and report back on the fix. Until then.