So the room must listen to me, filibuster vigilantly

I can’t say it’s been a bad week, but I didn’t meet my goal last week, and I’m not hopeful of meeting the new goal this week.

Last weeks goal was to make time to run 5 times while also going to the Franklin Institute Friday to see the King Tut exhibit in Philadelphia. I was able to do that (as well as see a few outdoor sites while I was there like the Rodin statue of The Thinker in front of the Rodin Museum I am posing with in the picture.)

However, I only ran 3 times and became lazy. I got back on the treadmill yesterday, and again today. Ran better today, up to 2.25 miles in 30 minutes, but I’m unhappy with the progress from last week.

This week I was going to eat better, but that hasn’t happened so far. I seem to have some psychological disconnect when it comes to eating well. I did well until 10 am Monday when we had breakfast supplied by work, at which time I ate 2 muffins and 2 bagels by the end of the day. Today wasn’t much better. I don’t have much hope for tomorrow either.

Gary was asking me to go out Saturday, and I keep not feeling like going out. I finally figured out my aversion to it. I explained how, when I lost the weight, I was feeling good about myself, but now that I’ve gained a lot of it back, when I go in public places like a gay bar, I can only think about how big my belly is. I try to pull my shirt out more, try to hide it with my hand over my stomach, try to sit in a way that hides it. And my internal monologue the whole time is “They are looking at my belly. They all see how huge it is and are thinking how ugly I am, they all are embarrassed for me.” And that goes on for the entire time I am in a public place with the potential for many gay me. Think of that happening for the 2-3 hours I’d be in public, and I am mentally exhausted by the end of it.

So I choose not to go to gay bars right now. Maybe in a few months I’ll feel better, but right now, I am just going to stay inside and be miserable. Pathetic, isn’t it? Now we see they effects of the “Tub o Goo” comment.

All the old paintings on the tombs they do the sand dance don't you know

Last week I ran 5 times. Over 10 miles for the entire week. Yeah me! I realized I had to do it, so I just went out and did it. This week so far I’ve run both days and feel good about it. I went a little faster today and got up to 2.25 miles with no problems.

And now for the bad news. I’ve so much food that it is ridiculous. I shoved more and more food into my face the past 5 days. Not that it all was bad, but when I was full, I would just open a bag of whatever I had crunchy around and eat more and more.

I realize now how bad being over stuffed makes me feel, but I don’t seem to have found the willpower to stop myself. Even today after lunch, I was full, but decided to have some whole wheat mini pitas with some garlic hummus (someone went to Trader Joe’s last night) as well as some mini milk chocolate peanut butter cups (and was really bad while at Trader Joe’s). And I sit here now, after I’ve run, and feel so full I almost feel sick. I don’t usually like running when I’m this full, but I had to run.

My mom & I will be off to DC to visit Carl & Darren on Thursday, and then to Philadelphia on Friday to see the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute. While away I will eat authentic Chinese food (Darren is Taiwanese, after all) and probably suck down some beer. After this weekend, I am going to work on cutting calories, as I’ve said before, because I can’t go on eating like this. It is bad for my stomach AND bad for my wallet.

Even when I started running back in 2005, I was controlling my eating through a low carb diet, so I know I have to do it. And I know I can’t just lose weight by running alone. I know I have to control my eating. I just have to keep telling myself this so that I do it.

But getting back to running has made me feel better already, so that is a positive. I want to keep it up this week, taking Friday off only. If I work hard, I can do that (we are leaving Thursday afternoon, so I have to work ½ a day and get a run in before we leave, and then run when I get back home on Saturday.)

I know I’ve talked before about my GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease.) I had problems with it daily since 1995. Last year, I stopped having to take a pill every day after I lost the weight. The heart burn stopped. Well, it has come back, and I recently started taking a pill every day. This has been one of the other incentives to run again. It was nice not to have heartburn all the time, and now I have it again. I see the correlation between my omentum and my heartburn. I am hoping that once I lose some weight, I can again finally be heartburn free.

I have my work cut out for me, but I am confident I can do it. Again. And keep doing it till I am good and healthy. Damnit!

Get back, get back. Get back to where you once belonged

Four runs this week, each about 2.2 miles in 30 minutes. I am feeling the groove, or the burn, or the pain. Whatever it is I am supposed to be feeling that is a catch phrase for feeling comfortable that is what I am right now.

I am breaking my running into two phases to get through it all. Before, I was warming up for about 5 minutes before going full speed for 21 minutes, then a warm down period. Now, I am breaking it into 15 minute parts. Warm up slower, take 5 minutes warm up again, then run at 6 miles/per for 8 minutes, slow down, then do it again. I am not burning as many calories, but I am active for the full 30 minutes.

I don’t know how long I will do this before I get back to running like I was before. I will slowly push myself to get back to where I once was. I do feel better when I run, so I know that is a good sign.

I will also have to say that all the small aches and pains do show themselves when running. This year in softball, I seem to have tweaked a muscle in my right foot, basically pulled a muscle attached to my big toe. I don’t notice it most of the time, but I can feel it when running. I also have a small muscle strain in the left arch of my foot. I know it has been there for a few weeks, but I only feel it when running.

My left shoulder, hurt on the last day of softball, is still giving me problems, but I am doing some good stretching and strengthening exercises, so it is slowly getting better. It is good to work with doctors and nurses, as I can ask questions to them and can get some simple answers without fearing the worst. No one thinks I tore anything in my shoulder, but pulled a muscle that only time, stretching and more time can heal. If I am still having problems in a few more weeks, or if it doesn’t get better, I will seek medical help, but right now, it is just an annoyance.

Eating is hit or miss this week. I do well for a day or so, and then eat a whole medium pizza in one day. My thoughts now are that I will keep up what I am doing now, then, after my short trip next weekend to DC & Philly, I will try to be more strict, get down to at least 2,000 calories per day for a few weeks until I can get back down to 1,600 calories per day. That sounds like a good plan for now.

And now I must go to the court house here in Allegheny County to get sworn in as a Notary Public. My work at the insurance company needed a Notary, so I volunteered. And now I have to run around on my day off to get the final things done. I wonder if I have to swear to god to become a Notary. I wonder if a godless Notary is as good as one who believes in magical unicorns.

The darkness looming there; maybe it won't work this time, but that's the risk you take (and you want to take it)

I ran on Friday, but didn’t end up having time Saturday or yesterday. Well, I had time yesterday, but I wasn’t in the mood. If I don’t run on a Saturday, I never am in the mood to run on a Sunday.

But I came home today from work (and rush hour was awful) and ran 2.2 miles in 30 minutes. Not bad at all. I also feel the beginning of some sort of flu thing, but I will get over it.

Sadly, this little under the weather feeling doesn’t seem to be effecting my ability to eat. And since I seem to have given myself permission to eat anything I can, I go for it. So this morning, I weighed in at 247.5 lbs. I do see the importance of running, of course, but I think I need to reign in the eating a bit. Maybe not do the 1600 calories exact, but slow down the eating so I see some progress in the weight loss, instead of no progress or regressions.

I am trying to stay positive with this program, as nothing really worked as well as this last year, and it seems I only need to be strict for about six weeks to get it going, and I can maintain it for the most part.

Back in 1007 (ed. 1997, obviously), I did the Atkins diet, and that worked well for about 6 months. The problem I had with it is that when I went off of it, I’d gain it back quickly, and lose less the next time I was strict. I know I’ve talked in the past about how many times I’ve dieted and failed, but I don’t consider this past year & a half a failure. These are all just bumps in the road, and I know I will be victorious in the long run, because I have to be. Heart disease, obesity, adult onset diabetes and ligament problems are not things I want to deal with in the future, and I need to step up now and be serious. And I see this as a marathon, not a sprint. Small set backs are just that; small.

The title of this entry today is from a beautiful song by Jane Sibbery, “The Life is a The Red Wagon.” Jane is a little nutty, to say the least (on my 37th birthday, she legally changes her name to Issa, pronounced eeee-sah for no apparent reason) but she has a fantastic voice and seems to write songs from the heart. I recommend her, especially her album “Bound by the Beauty.”

One of the most famous (and usually considered one of the most important) American poems of the 20th century is Williams Carlos Williams' “The Red Wheelbarrow,” (although technically, it is call “XXII” for it’s placement in a book of poems Dr. Williams wrote, and many scholars agree that calling it by any other name, such as “The Red Wheelbarrow,” gives more meaning than the poet wanted) a form of imagistic poetry where there isn’t meanings to poems, just things:

so much depends
upon
a red wheelbarrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

I think Ms. Siberry took this iconoclastic poem and suggested a deeper meaning to the thing Dr. Willaims described, which probably would have angered him. The song is about two friends, and how sometimes, though things are difficult, “you pull me, and I pull for you.” I think this is the simplest foundation for most successful human relationships. Sometimes, my friends help me more than I can for myself, and sometimes I help them. That is the beauty of humans. We pull each other along at the same time others are pulling us along.

(Ed: Obviously, I typed "1007" instead of "1997." I would like the thank Mr. Anonymous, i.e. my pot smoking friend, for not commenting on my deconstruction of a beautiful song and the human meaning of relationships but for pointing out a typo. It would have been funnier to sign in as Dr. Brown and congratulate me for being the second person to invent a time traveling machine.)

I don't mind masquerading with all those other fools. I don't mind the games I'm playing, because I've learned the rules

I have run all three days this week so far, around 2 miles per day in 30 minutes. I think I am going to keep running and not be as strict on the diet, at least for now. It isn't that I am eating poorly all the time, but I think I need to prove that I can run again to myself before I conquer the eating healthy part.

It sounds like a cop out, even as I type it, but I know what works for me. And like the weight training, I know what won't work right now. After I've been running and prove to myself that I can do it again, then I can start concentrating on the 1600 calorie per day diet. It isn't like I'm going to shove all food down, but I can control the running now, at least I think I can. Once I have my running confidence back, I will be up to the task of eating well.

That aside, I want to tell a little story from Saturday night, at Holly's party. There was a friend of the neighbor at the party, and he is in the navy, has been for 12 years. He was actually leaving a few days after the party, so he was getting his freak on.

Well, in order to impress the women there, he was talking about all the countries he'd been to, and one of the women asked if he'd been to Italy. He said he had been, but won't go back because "The place was full of fags."

Hmmm, yeah, I wasn't about to let that go. Not only was I in attendance, but Holly's brother is gay. So I said "Really? I was in Italy last year, and I couldn't find another fag to save my life." And to make my point clear, I said “And I was looking for some hot Italian ass!”

He realized his "mistake" and tried to backtrack, "Well, I have only been to Naples, and they were everywhere."

"Yeah," I said sarcastically, "I find that hard to believe."

"There were so many there that one of my shipmates got drunk one night and was found the next morning in an alley with his pants down and his ass bleeding."

I, as well as several other party goers, was shocked at this sentence. "So you were saying he was raped?"

Getting defensive, he said "Well, that is what happened. I know the guy."

I'd had enough of his homophobia. "Rape is a crime of control, not of passion."

"I only know the facts, man." he said, sounding like he was getting angry.

"Well, contrary to what you and your navy friends think, us homos don't go around raping innocent seamen for kicks. What happened was your friend wanted fucked, so he got drunk and got fucked in an alleyway. And when he got caught, he lied. Your navy buddy is a butt pirate."

I could tell he was I was getting on his nerves but he wanted to play the testosterone filled man "No, we got the 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy, so why would he do that."

I was flabbergasted. "So you are telling me that this guy got raped and there wasn't some big investigation into it? So when my ex was in the navy for 8 years getting boned at every port, he was actually getting raped?"

I think I was seething by this point. "Your 'Don't ask, don't tell' bullshit only makes the gay seamen lie about why they were getting fucked."

With that, I walked away. I just can't believe that these über-masculine men think that us queers want their asses so badly that we will pounce on them if they get drunk, ripped their pants off, and fuck them if given the chance.

This is the ignorance we are all facing. Yeah, Don't ask, don't tell is a great solution that doesn't hurt anyone.

Fuck ups.

September morning still can make me feel this way

The end of August came and went, and with it the last few weeks of summer fun. Sure we have a bit more time before fall actually gets here, but it isn't the same. Summer in September isn't summer. It is some hot days and some cool nights, but the nights are longer and the warm weather doesn't last as long.

I love the fall. I know someone who says that people who say they love the fall are lying, that they just want to be different from all the people who say they love summer. But I truly find fall, especially the beginning of fall, like around the start of September, the best time of the year. You still have warmth during the day, and the nights...well, I like not sleeping with the air conditioning on.

This time of the year sees me overweight and struggling to be healthy, just like so many autumns before. Not last year, though. Last year was fantastic. Even with all the struggles, last year has to go down for me as the best one in years.

Last year at this time, I was 215 lbs. I was running 5 times a week and watching, at least during the week, what I was eating. No as easy now as it was then, but I know it is a different year, and I am a different person.

I ran this morning, 2.15 miles in 30 minutes, but that is all I've done since Friday. I know I should have run yesterday or Saturday, but just couldn't bring myself to do it. And when I was on the treadmill today, I just kept wondering why I didn't do this either day. I enjoy running. It clears my head, my lungs and makes me feel better, but if I'm not on the treadmill on those days, it is difficult to get started.

I also ate horribly this weekend. Again, don't understand why. Friday was good, and Saturday started out good, but then I went to Holly's birthday party, and it just became a feeding frenzy that didn't end until yesterday at Gary's house.

This morning I was 246 lbs. I'm only trying to record weight once a week, but I know I was less early last week. All I can do is try harder and harder. Work at it till I get back to what I was, or some semblance of it. I'd love to blame it all on the car accident or the vacations, but reality is that I don't seem to have the same drive that I had last year.

Now that fall is coming, maybe I can just concentrate on being the better me. Not a new me, cause that is just cheeseball in and of itself (had a great cheeseball at the party Saturday night), but it is what I need to believe to do this. Get a handle on it and run and eat well. Doesn't seem that difficult when I say it, but it is tough sometimes to string a couple good weeks together.