That's it. We're not coming back.
Like...ever.
Arrived at Kilworth House in Leicestershire at lunchtime, annnnd I'm simply not leaving. It's glorious in a way that goes beyond comfort, and beyond ostentation. It's beautiful in a highly practical manner...and then it has some extra beautiful dumped on top just for swank.
I'm writing this in the Kipling Suite (stoking one's literary pretensions, anyone?), with a four poster bed in the other room, and more space than the whole downstairs of our maisonette. Had a great time with Wendy and Maria and friends, then went down to the magnificent Orangery (a real one, apparently, originally developed for the Lord Sheriff of Leicestershire) for dinner. Had dessert - a knickerbocker glory of some style, yep, shoot me, I'm on my holidays - and three cans of cider. So, Disappearingly, a write-off, but this is what I mean by "once the speed-bump of the wedding's over, I'll get back to normal..."
Tomorrow, one of my best friends gets married to the woman of her dreams. Or, if you want to be prosaic about the whole thing...I'm going away now to digest a huge dinner...ready for more eating in just about seven hours' time.
Hard life, right enough...Hard recovery coming at the end of it all of course, but for now, arrivederci Disappearing World...
I'm so not leaving...you'll get my keycard when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands, ya hear me...!
Thursday, 29 November 2012
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
The Visionary Dichotomy
The nature of today depends entirely on the direction in which I look. In one direction, we're off to Kilworth House tomorrow for three days of wedding joy with Wendy and her wife-to-be, Maria. Sooo looking forward to that, they're a fab couple.
Then, looking up to Ma's place, there's greyness and rain and the perpetual March of the Asshats - insurance companies, mainly. Plus her freezer, which is relatively new (as in this year), died in the night, meaning another miniature flood and a bunch of spoiled food. She's still waiting for the freezer company to come back to her.
Greyness and grimness continues if I turn to look at another pal, who's really going through some stuff at the moment.
Then looking back at my own life, I'm probably out of control at this precise moment, but am determined to regain focus when we return from the wedding.
Wherever we look of course, there are always stories - dramas, comedies, tragedies and more usually lives, which are at least a little of all three and more. It's just rare in one day to see different directional facets in just turning one's head a couple of degrees. BUT - tomorrow, nothing else matters for three days but Wendy and Maria. The flatline beep you hear is the Disappearing Man...Disappearing. Please leave your name and trauma after the beep, and I'll return your call come Friday.
Then, looking up to Ma's place, there's greyness and rain and the perpetual March of the Asshats - insurance companies, mainly. Plus her freezer, which is relatively new (as in this year), died in the night, meaning another miniature flood and a bunch of spoiled food. She's still waiting for the freezer company to come back to her.
Greyness and grimness continues if I turn to look at another pal, who's really going through some stuff at the moment.
Then looking back at my own life, I'm probably out of control at this precise moment, but am determined to regain focus when we return from the wedding.
Wherever we look of course, there are always stories - dramas, comedies, tragedies and more usually lives, which are at least a little of all three and more. It's just rare in one day to see different directional facets in just turning one's head a couple of degrees. BUT - tomorrow, nothing else matters for three days but Wendy and Maria. The flatline beep you hear is the Disappearing Man...Disappearing. Please leave your name and trauma after the beep, and I'll return your call come Friday.
Monday, 26 November 2012
The Disciplinary Boomerang
Life is a very odd way of learning lessons. Still, given that there's
no concrete evidence that death can teach us anything - leastways not
our own - I suppose we're stuck with the lessons we can pick from the
flotsam of our days on this planet, even when those lessons are not
terribly flattering.
I am done with things not fitting - I find it boring, and I find myself not the person I want to be, or indeed the person I feel I am. It's borderline insane of course that weight - that body fat, essentially - should have this kind of impact on one's self-image, but there it is; call me a fallible old sentimentalist if you will. As soon as Wendy's wedding is done this week,though, I want to start getting back into the clothes I bought (or - and here's another of those stabs of self-knowledge - in some cases were bought for me) when I was a few stones lighter and thinner and generally more Disappeared than I am right now. I am done with this bullshit.
Another irritating home truth is that this may well become an easier thing to achieve once this week is done. Why?
Because I go back to work then, essentially.
But surely, having November off was supposed to free me up to do more exercise?
Yes, but clearly, I need an aide de discipline. Clearly, left to my own devices, I can find innumerable better things to do. Clearly, in fact, I need a routine into which to fit my exercise, almost to get away with exercise, as though it is something almost of which to be ashamed. And no, in case you're wondering, I don't really like what this says about my psychology. But if there is one thing demanded of us by the necessity to learn our life lessons, it is that not liking a thing does not make it untrue. So: there is a kind of angry steel feeling in the back of my throat that accepts these things about myself, and will begin to put them to work for me, in the pursuit of further Disappearance. Soon, I will be back at work, with far, far too much to do. Somehow, the perversity of my psychology relishes this fact, and the challenge of fitting exercise into the schedule as well, and somehow making it work for me. Work equals routine. Routine equals discipline. Discipline - perversely, as I seem to keep saying - equals a need to kick against it and still make my desires work for me, ergo it equals a greater determination to fit the exercise I need to do into my days.
All of which adds up to fitting into shirts that fit a 15 stone man and not a 17 and a half stone man, and buttoning up my Disappearing Coat for the winter.
So let's get started, shall we?
I am done with things not fitting - I find it boring, and I find myself not the person I want to be, or indeed the person I feel I am. It's borderline insane of course that weight - that body fat, essentially - should have this kind of impact on one's self-image, but there it is; call me a fallible old sentimentalist if you will. As soon as Wendy's wedding is done this week,though, I want to start getting back into the clothes I bought (or - and here's another of those stabs of self-knowledge - in some cases were bought for me) when I was a few stones lighter and thinner and generally more Disappeared than I am right now. I am done with this bullshit.
Another irritating home truth is that this may well become an easier thing to achieve once this week is done. Why?
Because I go back to work then, essentially.
But surely, having November off was supposed to free me up to do more exercise?
Yes, but clearly, I need an aide de discipline. Clearly, left to my own devices, I can find innumerable better things to do. Clearly, in fact, I need a routine into which to fit my exercise, almost to get away with exercise, as though it is something almost of which to be ashamed. And no, in case you're wondering, I don't really like what this says about my psychology. But if there is one thing demanded of us by the necessity to learn our life lessons, it is that not liking a thing does not make it untrue. So: there is a kind of angry steel feeling in the back of my throat that accepts these things about myself, and will begin to put them to work for me, in the pursuit of further Disappearance. Soon, I will be back at work, with far, far too much to do. Somehow, the perversity of my psychology relishes this fact, and the challenge of fitting exercise into the schedule as well, and somehow making it work for me. Work equals routine. Routine equals discipline. Discipline - perversely, as I seem to keep saying - equals a need to kick against it and still make my desires work for me, ergo it equals a greater determination to fit the exercise I need to do into my days.
All of which adds up to fitting into shirts that fit a 15 stone man and not a 17 and a half stone man, and buttoning up my Disappearing Coat for the winter.
So let's get started, shall we?
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Thankfulness II - The Revenge
Oh...my...stomach...
Today we had proper Thanksgiving dinner - or the nearest thing the UK can achieve within a budget. Started eating at about 4pm. Just about 7 we were collapsing onto couches, groaning. Then I had to roll myself off the couch again and go sing. Think I went from a top tenor to a bottom bass tonight!
Did I mention that thing about days when I was gonna celebrate as a proper celebrant, and then have days of proper Disappearing? Yyyyeah, this would be one of the first kind of days.
One of my pals, who's doing their own Disappearing at the minute and who's close to where I am at the minute, texted me yesterday to say "Bum...have gone up a couple of pounds...Did I say? Bum..."
I have a feeling I may well be catching up with them this week, or even overshooting them. On the upside, this Wednesday we leave for three days of wedding fun for my pal Wendy, which means there will be no weigh-in this week. This is gonna be a case of Ninja Disappearing...need to creep my fat ass by this week, and turn up next week having kicked said ass into gear and burned, baby - burned!
For now...sssshhh...trying not to steal another slice of pumpkin pie before bed...
Today we had proper Thanksgiving dinner - or the nearest thing the UK can achieve within a budget. Started eating at about 4pm. Just about 7 we were collapsing onto couches, groaning. Then I had to roll myself off the couch again and go sing. Think I went from a top tenor to a bottom bass tonight!
Did I mention that thing about days when I was gonna celebrate as a proper celebrant, and then have days of proper Disappearing? Yyyyeah, this would be one of the first kind of days.
One of my pals, who's doing their own Disappearing at the minute and who's close to where I am at the minute, texted me yesterday to say "Bum...have gone up a couple of pounds...Did I say? Bum..."
I have a feeling I may well be catching up with them this week, or even overshooting them. On the upside, this Wednesday we leave for three days of wedding fun for my pal Wendy, which means there will be no weigh-in this week. This is gonna be a case of Ninja Disappearing...need to creep my fat ass by this week, and turn up next week having kicked said ass into gear and burned, baby - burned!
For now...sssshhh...trying not to steal another slice of pumpkin pie before bed...
Saturday, 24 November 2012
The Thankfulness Expansion
A belated happy Thanksgiving to one and all.
I'm very keen on Thanksgiving, truth be told. Seems to me to be a celebration deeply rooted in dead birdflesh and the candying or roasting of every conceivable carbohydrate known to man. So hey - where's the bad?
I'm also quite keen on what might be considered the other point of Thanksgiving - y'know, the taking of a day to look around and think "Wow...dude, this Being Alive gig pretty much kicks ass!"
That it does this is of course a somewhat boyscout assertion, under constant threat of revision by, when all is said and done, the asshattery of other people. Other people should not, I feel, on the whole, be allowed. Other people frequently go staggeringly far out of their way, apparently with the sole determination in life to be asshats and increase the general - or indeed, sometimes the specific - level of misery in the lives of everyone else they encounter, and most particularly, me.
Sometimes, I will happily grant you, this makes it something of a challenge to look around and see the reasons in your life to be thankful, cheerful and generally upbeat. Or even, if we're honest, not to smash an asshat in the face with a baseball bat.
Life itself, too, sometimes seems to go out of its way to be a kind of cosmological Asshat (it earns the capitalisation due to its majestic and natural bigness). The propensity of people to just die and leave us alone, the surge of wind or water that wipes out lives and memories, the famine, the war, the specific shittinesses of life, tend to make it harder to be upbeat and boyscout about the whole "Being Alive" schtick.
But then, we're not talking about a permanent effort. Just a day. A single day to quote the Rainmakers in my favourite song of theirs - "In spite of everything, it's pretty good to be alive."
I think Thanksgiving would pretty much rock were it not to be so limited a notion. Worldwide Thanksgiving Day would be kinda cool. Couldn't be mandatory of course - the freedom of thankless Scroogey bastards to remain thankless Scroogey bastards should always be maintained. But maybe we should be allowed on that one day to annoy the piss out of them with random and spontaneous acts of kindness. Flashmob kindness in fact - hell, we can organise riots that way, why not kindnesses?
Twitter campaign, anyone?
I'm very keen on Thanksgiving, truth be told. Seems to me to be a celebration deeply rooted in dead birdflesh and the candying or roasting of every conceivable carbohydrate known to man. So hey - where's the bad?
I'm also quite keen on what might be considered the other point of Thanksgiving - y'know, the taking of a day to look around and think "Wow...dude, this Being Alive gig pretty much kicks ass!"
That it does this is of course a somewhat boyscout assertion, under constant threat of revision by, when all is said and done, the asshattery of other people. Other people should not, I feel, on the whole, be allowed. Other people frequently go staggeringly far out of their way, apparently with the sole determination in life to be asshats and increase the general - or indeed, sometimes the specific - level of misery in the lives of everyone else they encounter, and most particularly, me.
Sometimes, I will happily grant you, this makes it something of a challenge to look around and see the reasons in your life to be thankful, cheerful and generally upbeat. Or even, if we're honest, not to smash an asshat in the face with a baseball bat.
Life itself, too, sometimes seems to go out of its way to be a kind of cosmological Asshat (it earns the capitalisation due to its majestic and natural bigness). The propensity of people to just die and leave us alone, the surge of wind or water that wipes out lives and memories, the famine, the war, the specific shittinesses of life, tend to make it harder to be upbeat and boyscout about the whole "Being Alive" schtick.
But then, we're not talking about a permanent effort. Just a day. A single day to quote the Rainmakers in my favourite song of theirs - "In spite of everything, it's pretty good to be alive."
I think Thanksgiving would pretty much rock were it not to be so limited a notion. Worldwide Thanksgiving Day would be kinda cool. Couldn't be mandatory of course - the freedom of thankless Scroogey bastards to remain thankless Scroogey bastards should always be maintained. But maybe we should be allowed on that one day to annoy the piss out of them with random and spontaneous acts of kindness. Flashmob kindness in fact - hell, we can organise riots that way, why not kindnesses?
Twitter campaign, anyone?
The Black Forest Diversion
So...a funny thing happened to me on the way to midnight...
You remember I said that I was gonna work and be full of discipline on days when I didn't have a calorific speed-bump, and then all kinda cool and chilled out when I did?
Well here's the thing about speed-bump days.
I know they're coming now.
Which means when I went for a coffee with my pal Rebecca this morning, it turned into one Gingerbread Latte, and one...erm...Black Forest Hot Chocolate, thanks to the nearest thing we have to a Starbucks in this town, which is the Costa on the Retail Park...
This evening was the speed-bump proper - an annual dinner with the choir. The food was good enough, and when desserts were offered, before I could even particularly think about it, I stuck my hand in the air. Of the desserts available, what landed in front of me couldn't have been more appropriate - Black Forest Gateau.
And reader, I ate it.
Yes I did, and I'm frankly unapologetic about it. Y'know why? Because part of my duty for the night was to take pictures, and that meant digging out the camera, and that in turn meant - holy fuck! Finding the pictures of myself when I started this whole thing. And yeah, sure, the margin's fairly narrow - it's about three stone, give or take a pound and a fart, from when I started to where I am now. But...damn! All I can tell you is that's three important stone! So I'm gonna not stress out. I'm gonna work hard when I can, and have fun when I can, and pound by bloody pound, overall and on balance, I'm gonna push on down. But I'm gonna be fine, and I'm still a lot better than I was when I began this quest. Downward, yes, by all means. Downhearted? No.
You remember I said that I was gonna work and be full of discipline on days when I didn't have a calorific speed-bump, and then all kinda cool and chilled out when I did?
Well here's the thing about speed-bump days.
I know they're coming now.
Which means when I went for a coffee with my pal Rebecca this morning, it turned into one Gingerbread Latte, and one...erm...Black Forest Hot Chocolate, thanks to the nearest thing we have to a Starbucks in this town, which is the Costa on the Retail Park...
This evening was the speed-bump proper - an annual dinner with the choir. The food was good enough, and when desserts were offered, before I could even particularly think about it, I stuck my hand in the air. Of the desserts available, what landed in front of me couldn't have been more appropriate - Black Forest Gateau.
And reader, I ate it.
Yes I did, and I'm frankly unapologetic about it. Y'know why? Because part of my duty for the night was to take pictures, and that meant digging out the camera, and that in turn meant - holy fuck! Finding the pictures of myself when I started this whole thing. And yeah, sure, the margin's fairly narrow - it's about three stone, give or take a pound and a fart, from when I started to where I am now. But...damn! All I can tell you is that's three important stone! So I'm gonna not stress out. I'm gonna work hard when I can, and have fun when I can, and pound by bloody pound, overall and on balance, I'm gonna push on down. But I'm gonna be fine, and I'm still a lot better than I was when I began this quest. Downward, yes, by all means. Downhearted? No.
Thursday, 22 November 2012
The Snapped Elastic Abyss
Before we start, no I'm not referring in this blog to actual snapped elastic. There will be no retrospectively hilarious tales of me schlepping round a city, holding up my drawers with both hands, having ballooned beyond their tolerance levels.
Got a slightly false, pre-morning-bathroom result for today's weigh-in, as had to go walk with Ma and from there straight to her place. But it wasn't great - 17stone 8 pounds.
In a way though, this is the point - I'm at a point right now where I need to pull things significantly back, push the discipline pedal to the metal and push on down from here. However, tomorrow, there's a formal dinner we'll be attending. Next week, we have three glorious days of hotellish calorific intensity at my pal Wendy's wedding - awoohoo! And in December, we're away for another three days of hotelling over Christmas itself. So what we have is a range of joyful, delicious, and generally celebratory speed-bumps in the pathway of my Disappearing journey.
Of course, this is nothing but copping-out. I'll be in charge of my own destiny going forward. What will be important is not snapping my elastic. Not giving into the inevitability of the speed-bumps (feels really weird of course, describing one of my best friends' wedding as a speed-bump - not what I mean, of course!) and saying "To Hell with it, let's eeeeeeaaaaaat!!" on all the days inbetween the bumps. Time, clearly , to exercise restraint on days when I can, and celebrate with friends and family on the days when those celebrations happen. To do anything else will plunge me into an abyss of excess that will rocket me back up the increasingly small distance back to where I started this journey. The margin between where I am now and where I started out is now too small to allow me any elastic-complacency about this. Eyes down, arse up and let's get focussing...
Got a slightly false, pre-morning-bathroom result for today's weigh-in, as had to go walk with Ma and from there straight to her place. But it wasn't great - 17stone 8 pounds.
In a way though, this is the point - I'm at a point right now where I need to pull things significantly back, push the discipline pedal to the metal and push on down from here. However, tomorrow, there's a formal dinner we'll be attending. Next week, we have three glorious days of hotellish calorific intensity at my pal Wendy's wedding - awoohoo! And in December, we're away for another three days of hotelling over Christmas itself. So what we have is a range of joyful, delicious, and generally celebratory speed-bumps in the pathway of my Disappearing journey.
Of course, this is nothing but copping-out. I'll be in charge of my own destiny going forward. What will be important is not snapping my elastic. Not giving into the inevitability of the speed-bumps (feels really weird of course, describing one of my best friends' wedding as a speed-bump - not what I mean, of course!) and saying "To Hell with it, let's eeeeeeaaaaaat!!" on all the days inbetween the bumps. Time, clearly , to exercise restraint on days when I can, and celebrate with friends and family on the days when those celebrations happen. To do anything else will plunge me into an abyss of excess that will rocket me back up the increasingly small distance back to where I started this journey. The margin between where I am now and where I started out is now too small to allow me any elastic-complacency about this. Eyes down, arse up and let's get focussing...
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