Inside Every Fat Person...

"I'm getting so tired of your histrionics, ya know that?"

This, said with some feeling but a comedy eye-roll, was the reaction to my weigh-in this morning from d. She said it in response to my wandering round the house, scratching my head, and indeed anything else that came within reach, and muttering "Well this just doesn't make any bloody sense, does it?"

I can see her point, really - and it raises an interesting question which we've vaguely mentioned before. We're always told that inside every fat person, there's a thin person waiting to get out...the question is whether the fat person actually likes the thin person very much, or vice versa.

In my case, when I'm fat and eating what I like and drinking what I want, the world can have my last shilling, I'm liberal as the day is long, I judge nobody, and I'm happy, happy, happy. Positively Falstaffian, you might say, if you were in the mood for a literary reference. On the other hand, since I started denying myself all the things I like, I've become bitchy, deadline-obsessed, prone to violent fantasies, whingy, judgmental and, apparently, have developed a fine line in man-breast-beating histrionics. The Disappearing Me is frankly little more than a screaming gay stereotype!

Is this a good thing to be striving towards? Does it benefit anyone if my remaining years on this planet are governed by this wretched harridan? I mean, other than me, in terms of ‘my remaining years on this planet’ being in all probability significantly increased in number. What about the whole quality vs quantity argument, eh? If I go through the rest of my life as someone that the previous me wouldn’t recognise, am I even still me? Is everything meaningless, or should I go and get hopelessly lost on the swirly misty moors and drown and come back as a ghost and haunt my friends and family? And if I did, which version of me would turn up? Jolly, Falstaffian Me or bitchy Disappearing Me…and could I face eternity as a diaphanous demented skinny fuck…

Ahem…I begin to see what she means about my histrionics, you know. Anyway…on we go.

What? Oh, the result, yeah, sure – 19 stone 1.25 – another two pounds lost from somewhere, making 20 pounds lost in total after 13 weeks. So technically only a month behind my original schedule. Shall we start May over again tomorrow, would that be fun?

Er…no. No it wouldn’t. Blood was 5.4 this morning, so A-OK, and got back to the walking with a bit of a spring in my step today. Thing is, this having lost two pounds makes absolutely no bloody sense whatsoever – forgot to mention, I actually weighed yesterday morning, and I was 19 st 3.25 – maintaining the loss of last week, but no more. Hence my calculations from yesterday, and my expectations of having maintained today. Thing is, while the big, Falstaffian me kinda wants to pass round the foaming flagons of celebratory ale, and sing songs of hurrah and huzzah...the mean-spirited Disappearing Me has a vision of d, in the middle of the snoring night, doing Scooby Doo tiptoeing into the bathroom with a screwdriver, and adjusting the digital scales somehow, just to shut me the Hell up. 

See - this is the person we're gradually, inch by freaking inch, unleashing on the world...

Somebody pass the ice-cream...

Sigh - YES, of course I'm only kidding. More's the pity. Anyway, in an attempt to synthesise the Falstaff despite the Disapperaing, charge your foaming tankards and all that cobblers to the joy that is 20 pounds...

Captain Sensible Vs The Disappearing Woman

You know how people always say that when they have to make big decisions, they get a little angel on their shoulder, whispering good intentions, and a little devil on the other shoulder, usually whispering about sensual pleasures and how great they are? I feel like that tonight, having done the math (or the maths, as my fellow Brits would insist was more grammatically correct – after all, one never refers to a single mathematic as a collective noun, does one?) of my current situation. My current situation of course being on the brink of my 14^th Tuesday since this experiment began. If we take the first Tuesday as my initial weigh-in, with no expected ‘loss’, then that leaves 13 during which I should have lost two pounds, making a total expected weight-loss of 26 pounds. If, which seems unlikely somehow given my generally highly-regarded impersonation of Jabba The Hutt this weekend, I’ve maintained last week’s level of weight-loss, what I will actually have lost is 18 pounds, leaving a shortfall of eight pounds, or four full weeks of effort, for those of you with a more sadistic turn of mind.

And that’s where the angel and the devil come in. Except I don’t have an angel and a devil – frankly as an atheist, I’m not sure I’d trust an angel if it whispered sweet nothings in my brain, and certainly my life to date has been more accustomed to listening to the ‘devilish’ impulses of sensual pleasure. After all, with the exception of the genuinely glandular or the genuinely disabled, you don’t get a body like mine without putting a serious amount of effort into the sensual pleasures of life. So instead of a devil and an angel, I have Captain Sensible and The Disappearing Woman.

The Disappearing Woman, who, since she was given a form by my pal Sally-Anne last week, really rather sounds like her, whispers “Oh look…you’re way behind where you wanted to be aren’t you? Better do something drastic, really, hadn’t you? Try a starvation diet for a couple of days, the pounds’ll fall off you, and you can get back on track…”

Meanwhile Captain Sensible, who’s absolutely not based on the weirdo 1980s British pop star of the same name, but appears, more than anything, to be based on James May from Top Gear, is standing on my other shoulder, tutting and folding his arms and shaking his head, going “Don’t be stupid…if ya do that, you’ll oversensitise your system, so that your body’ll go into Tasmanian Devil mode when you start eating again, keeping hold of every molecule of fat it can get its metaphorical hands on in case you…y’know…actually start starving to death…”

The thing is, that makes it sound cut and dried, doesn’t it? But I have to tell you, I can feel the persuasive pull of trying to work a starvation diet for a few days. I mean, surely, nothing’s more likely to convince my body that a) in the whole yin-yang of calories taken in vs calories expended, I mean business, and b) it really, truly, honest-to-any-god-you-like won’t starve to death and rot without food for a few days, than actually not taking anything in. And I do need to try and do something to catch myself up. Myself in a parallel universe, I mean, where I hadn’t spent most of May dealing with Real Stuff and therefore giving myself more license than would otherwise have been the case.

Sadly though, I think Captain Sensible might win the day, on the grounds that a) what he says appears to be actually true – which often helps in terms of winning arguments, I find, b) I don’t think d would let me rock a starvation diet, even if I really wanted to, and c) on a regime of no sugar, no fried foods, and sensible portions, there are days when I want to smash the faces of the effortlessly thin into huge great three-tiered wedding cakes and make them eat until they know what it’s like to be fat. I have a feeling that on a genuine starvation diet, in a crowded city, I might just cross the line from ‘fantasy homicidal lunatic’ and end up burying the needle in the red zone of ‘serious danger to himself and others.’

Sigh.

Fine. I’ll be over here, sulking, if you need me.

On the other hand, tomorrow, I go back to work. Of course it’s true that with a full week in the States, followed directly by three days in Croatia, followed directly by a long weekend off, I have only the sketchiest recollection of what it is I actually do for a living, or indeed, where I do it. But still, if I can hold my brain together, it’ll be a return to the world of Perspex boxes, walking, three square meals a day at more-or-less regular intervals, meaning three full doses of Xenical a day at more or less regular intervals, and all the stuff that let me make relatively quick initial progress. So foot down, back to reality, and all hail Captain Sensible…

A Walk In The Park

One of these days, I'll learn to stop making predictions. Decided to go out for a walk last night, because I was feeling sluggish and heavy. We got about a hundred yards across the park opposite our house (Machete Park as we think of it, for reasons of depressing accuracy), when I had to stop, and press a hand against my left breast. La Cucaracha was playing lustily under my skin. We had to turn around and come home, so I could lay down with my feet in the air and focus on my breathing.

This has really depressed me, if I'm honest. I cut out the caffeine - one more bloody thing I don't any longer do that I really want to - because everybody figured that was the triggering factor of the tachycardia. Now what? What bloody more lies in store? More pills? Some weird techie gadget sewn into my chest, the second step of my cyberisation, after the stainless steel ankle? More to the point, it feels like 'something, somewhere really wants me to fail' - though I know that's not the case. Nothing cares if I succeed or fail except you lot. It's just the accumulation of things - I try and walk, I get blisters, try and cycle, I get thigh-rot and break the bike. Try to walk again and wallop, the heart acts up again...What's to do now except starvation?

Just depresses me, and again, it's tempting to feel the thrum of failure on the clouds. Of course, d pointed out the truth to me - the truth I've said myself plenty of times; I don't really know I'm born during this experiment, compared to people like my pal Mae...or come to that, my pal Sally-Anne, or even my mother. They all have it harder than me for one reason or another, so what am I bitching about?

She's right of course, but still...this thing was supposed to be hard, but it wasn't supposed to be this ridiculous cycle of what-the-Hell-now, surely? Still haven't opened the dumb-bells we bought a while ago, but now am kinda scared to do so - will probably twang a tendon or something, ending up looking like a bloody orang-utan. Gonna try the 'going outside' thing again in a bit, just to give the finger to the tachycardia and try and regain some of the positivity that should surely accompany a long weekend. Thing is, I'm fairly sure at this point that Tuesday will bring another slip-back, to the point of accumulating the pounds I should have lost by now...and it feels like they're almost as many as the pounds I have lost.

Goddamnsonofabitchin'bastard....must shake this off, or I'll swan dive into an ice-cream parlour. Right - time for another walk in the park, so there...

...Maybe...

Out Of The Closet

Interesting day today, that took me right back to the first night in the States. We decided that this weekend, we'd do what we could do to clear out our closet of all the stuff that no longer fits or has outlived its purpose. That involved looking through the far end of the closet. Now, as you might imagine, we do this now and again, and the last time we did, we shoved a whole lot of stuff in the far end (which is never or rarely opened in day-to-day living) which we'd grown out of. When I opened the far end today and started trying pieces on, it turned out I now have far more shirts that fit than I had the last time I closed the closet. I've reclaimed quite a few bits of clothing that didn't fit, which was a nice visible marker of progress. As I say, it reminded me of the first night in the States, when our suitcase, containing all our clothes, was lost en route from Chicago to Buffalo. d went to Wal-Mart the next morning, and got us some clothes in case the case was lost for a while. It's become simply the norm, when shopping for clothes for me, to opt for 'Shrek-Size' - at least XXL, or, if in the States, where it has to be said, they cater less shamefully for the terminally large, XXXL. This time, d got a good few XXL shirts, and I gladly swapped out of my 36-hours-of-wearing plane clothes
"Wow," said d. "Way to be too big..." Apparently, I've dropped an X along the way so far, and while my single XL clothes bought here in the UK still occasionally bulge a little, clearly, I've done enough to welcome some of my previously-dead clothes back into the active side of the closet. So that's positive.

Anyhow, must stop now, as I've eaten two big meals today and not in fact shifted off my couch to any degree whatever. So am off for a walk...apparently. Probably just as well, I seem to be saying 'closet' far too much, when of course, what I really mean is 'wardrobe...' Seriously, I don't have closets, I'm British...

Back To Normal

Welllll how are we then, eh? After a traumatic trip to the States, and a mad three days in Croatia,I'm finally back to normal...which, as you know, around here means I have a four day bloody weekend! I swear, one of these days, I'm gonna do some hard work for days at a time, honest!

Did a weigh-in this morning which should really have been done on Tuesday. Initial results were that I'd put on a pound, at 19 stone 4.25. This, I thought, was fair enough - we've all known from the start there'd be weeks when I'd put on, and the wine-fest in Croatia would make sense as a cause of weight gain.

But here's the thing...the last few days, I really haven't felt very much like breakfast, so this morning, I didn't bother, and about mid-morning, I went for a second pee. Couldn't really resist, so had another weigh, after the event, and discovered I was back down to 19 stone 3.25 - exactly the same as when I weighed on Sunday. No won any normal weigh-in Tuesday, this wouldn't be acceptable behaviour in any way, shape or form, because of course I'm only using the digital scales at home to give consistent weights, and normally I'd have been in work before my revealing second pee...so...technically cheating? On the other hand, clearly the extra pound wasn't stored as fat, so I reckon there's enough logic to jussst about say I've maintained...whaddaya reckon?

Anyway - feels good to be home. The engineers will be coming to look at the exercise bike next Thursday, so that'll be the proper back in business date, but it feels like time to get back to all the discipline with which I started out on this experiment, and that feels like an exciting, positive thing.

Oh, and just to maintain the fiction that this is not all about me, me, me - heard from two other people who are trying to lose weight today - my mother was pleased to report she's passed her first stone barrier today on the Weight Watchers plan, so yay mum. And my friend Karen Pulley popped in with a "Go Sisters!" comment on the "Disappearing Woman" entry, and mentioned that she's lost between 7 and 12 pounds in about the last three weeks. Daresay the docs would say that was too much too fast, but that's one thing I know to be true - when you're losing, purposefully, the concept of too much too fast really doesn't feel like it applies, you just wanna make progress. So yay Karen too.

So where does this all leave me? Well, to some extent, the 'long game' of this business is really starting to kick me. Feels like I've been in the 19 stone zone for...freaking...ever...but with my rational head on, I know this is just a by-product of having started out at a half-stone point (regular readers will know I was 20 stone 7.5 when we began this madness) - so I had something to celebrate and a change of number relatively early on, in comparison to which, the long slog through a whole stone of the same number appears to be taking forever. On the other hand of course, according to the schedule, I was supposed to have lost 26 pounds by now, which would put me at 18 stone 9.5, as opposed to 19 stone 3.25, so I'm significantly behind where I should be. But the way I'm looking at it, you can let such things depress you and worry you - in which case you might as well hop on the fashion rollercoaster with the Disappearing Women AND make your system super-sensitive to calories when it gets them, adding more weight, proportionately, for the food you're eating, causing yourself ever more heartbreak - or you can say 'sometimes, shit happens' and pick up the pace when you can. In my case of course, I was a smartarse when the US trip came around and said 'let's try to maintain or put on just a little, and lull the body into a false sense of security, so when I get back to the exercise regime, it powers through the plateau again..." - which is precisely what I now intend to do. So, in a very real sense...nehhh!

Arrivederci Baska

Sorry folks - didn't get yesterday's entry posted in time - The end-of-conference dinner went on till 2AM, and we had to be out of the hotel by 5.20AM. Didn't sleep - had to pack, and was on Skype with d for a while, and then basically had to try and get out. The hotel packed us a breakfast, most of which was inedible, and the rest of which was fruit.

Here's a thing - I've become ridiculously spoiled when it comes to fruit. Fruit over here these days is so commonly seedless, that when presented with real, ordinary fruit this morning, I crunched on seeds and spat whole mouthfuls out in something like disgust for the uncouth Croatians and their seedy fruit. Ptui!

How far up your own arse is that?!

Anyway, we left Baska on the island of Krk, and screamed towards Zagreb Airport, where apparently, misery and shouting are part of the job description. Again, that was so entirely at variance with my experience of Croatians generally that it was rather a surprise. One delayed EasyJet flight, one Gatwick Express train, one District Line tube, one miserable East End bus in the pissing-down rain, and I was back behind my own front door again. Having been up for around 30 hours at that point, I crashed for the next three. Nothing of huge disappearing relevance today, though I did get a call from the exercise bike repair people - have to call them back tomorrow, and possibly they'll be here next Thursday. Might just possibly do another interim weigh-in tomorrow morning, as I have the day off...Right now, sleeeeeeeeep is calling again. Had a great three days in Baska, thanks to everyone there and the beauty of the place. But soooooo glad to be home, it's not even funny. Trust me, I tried to make it funny. But...erm...no.

The Disappearing Woman

Pfft...ash cloud? What freakin' ash cloud?
As some of the more observant of you might have spotted, was completely and utterly drunk and really rather vicious when I posted my last entry. Probably best thought of as an aberration, that one. Not sure which is better - to post here thoughts that are couched in such nonsensical terms as to be little better than drivel, or to skip posting at all when such moods take me. Thoughts welcome, but I guess if this thing is to have any artistic merit whatsoever beyond the confines of a personal diary, self-censorship is criminally pointless, right?

Woke up this morning to blood that registered 8.2 - my first reading of over 8 since we began this experiment, 8 being something of a watershed of good diabetic control over here. Of course, there was logic in that - I'm not sure I'd recommend the 'little food, much wine' diet to anyone. But in my case there was an extra little whipped-cream dollop of logic to the reading, which...and yes, I appreciate the stupidity of this...didn't strike me till I read it. That would be the fact that I haven't taken a pill since I got here. For reasons of public health and sanitation, I tend not to take the Xenical any day I'm getting on a plane, but somehow, in this plane of wine and sunshine, that had unconsciously extended itself to "no pills of any kind, any day". Still, at this late stage in this day, I've only taken one dose of each of my pills, so 8.2 was an unmedicated, utterly pickled result...by which standards, it's not too bad.

But that's not really what I want to talk about tonight, it's just housekeeping. My real topic tonight is beauty.
You may not think that beauty has much place in a conference full of science geeks, but you'd be wrong - firstly, by virtue of rarely possessing it in any measurable quality, science geeks adore beauty - it mystifies them, and entrances them, and drags them along like Bisto Kids* any time they see it. Secondly, it's important to realise that not all science geeks are men. And every woman is a beautiful woman.


Yeah, I know, this sounds like a kind of cut-price Hallmark sentiment, peddled by a horndog liberal, but there is a point here if I can only sculpt it clear for us. I got placed at the farewell dinner of the conference next to not one, but two, impressive women - strong, dazzling, intelligent women who've had to fight through male-dominated industries to win recognition for more than their physical attractiveness to men. As perhaps will come as a surprise to no-one, they spoke the most clear and simple sense of the entire conference, and agreed with each other. I love catching moments like that, it makes me glow and want to run around the town in a patchwork coat, singing "Listen to these women! Listen, oh you owners of penises, and have your minds blown!" One of the women left shortly after that, and I couldn't help but smile. The woman who'd left - Lijliana (probably a mis-spelling - think there needs to be at least one more j in there somewhere) - had been a revelation to me, and a breath of fresh air. The other, remaining woman, was my pal and partner-in-crime, Sally-Anne. As some other conversations swelled around us - how to make a real lightsabre...the point at which human beings will become robots and live as long as they want, yadda yadda yadda...Sally-Anne told me about fashion.

It won't surprise you to learn, given the nature of this blog, that I'm not and have never been a fashion icon. Sally-Anne has worked in the business, knows the brother of a supermodel, and follows fashion quite closely.
But as we talked, a note of sadness broke through her assessment of the fashion world.
"Have you seen the kind of people who are models today?" she asked, fairly confident, I'm sure, that I hadn't.
"They're pre-pubescent girls. I'm a grown woman - how can I aspire to look like them? But if you follow fashion, that's what you're trying to look like. Sometimes I get out of the shower, and I don't even want to look at myself, cos I know what they look like, and I know what I look like, and I just feel horrible and fat..."
Now, it should be pointed out here that in any objective viewing, Sally-Anne's pretty thin. But because she's compelled to follow the frankly misogynistic dictates of fashion, she doesn't feel thin, and the point is, there's no way that, while being healthy, she's ever going to feel thin enough.
"Last time I felt skinny," she said, "I'd been seriously ill with mumps, and then had my heart broken. The only thing that really made me feel any better was that I was so miserable I didn't want to eat, so I got thinner. And you get there, and then eventually you start to feel better, and start to eat a bit more...and then before you know it, you're back to feeling fat again!"

"I don't eat some days," she said. "Sometimes for days on end. And then when I do, I feel so guilty, and miserable. What Kate Mosse said is right though Tone - nothing tastes as good as skinny feels..."

It was more or less at this point that the pointlessness of my endeavour really struck me. Not the weight loss itself - that's a medical necessity - but blogging, as I am, about the tiny successes, the progressive inching towards better health. Compared to women in our society, I don't know I'm born. The horrible pressure we put on women and girls to look a certain way, and stay looking a certain way to validate their own sense of their own identity as beautiful women, is frankly, cruelly insane. We're raising generation after generation of women who aren't allowed to enjoy food, or to enjoy being alive to some degree, and who find their self-esteem only in a state of thinness that is utterly unhealthy, and that drives so many of them to extraordinary measures and misery. I might need to be the disappearing man for a while, but it's not a life sentence! Why - seriously, someone tell me why in the 21st century, our standards of societal beauty are disappearing women? We judge previous generations for not allowing women the right to vote and the right to reproductive healthcare, and the right to equality of sexuality. Future generations will judge us as barbaric for denying women the right to the understanding of their own beauty, and for systematically making their lives a misery.

The Mud Is Lovely

Did I mention the alcohol? There's a lot of alcohol on this island, and now there's talk of the ash cloud overwhwelming our plans to get home. And I really need to get home, y'all...otherwise the Brian in me might rise. Apparently he's already risen on the phone tonight, and that's wrong because frankly I can hardly put one keystroke in front of another. What perhaps you don't understand, certainly by my writing of him so far, is how much I fear the Brian inside, the primal me inside, that says grab while the drunkenness and the grabbing's good, and ignore what's been built on a beautiful  whim made good. Grab the people who are in need of wise counsel and use them to your momentary will...
Frankly, when the Brian comes over me, when my father comes over me, it's Biblical, and fates hang in the balance without me even saying so...

So let me sleep, and wake up drunk, and regretting that last plate of gnocchi, and wishing I'd had one sober moment on this island to reflect what might be lost from whatever might be gained, and altogether wretched as only a drunk can be. Bottom line, I don't believe I said all the things tonight I need to say, but hopefully while drunk, I said what needed to be said...apparently time and again...being drunk gives you no discretion and apparently fucks with your hearing too. I appear to have made an arse of myself tonight....most of it in drunken company, some of it with d, some of it with you. This is what happens when your trusted correspondent drinks far too much in a quest to blot out the painful bits of reality. Tomorrow we'll be back to weight gain and all the other inconsequential shit of life, I promise. But for now this is me, wallowing. Come on in, the mud is lovely...Sticky, and stinking, but somehow clean and lovely.

Days of Wine and...Well, More Wine...

Ow.

Ow ow ow ow ow...

OK, so my plan to provide a blog entry every day has technically gone down the river. There was wine involved. Clear, rather pleasant, Croatian white wine. And then...I think...there was more wine. And then there was snoring.

There was more than that of course, there was a flight from Gatwick to Zagreb, and Croatian car hire with my boss, Peter, and my colleague, pal and wine-buyer, Sally-Anne. Of course there was also a pernicious rumour about an Icelandic ash cloud. As yet, that hasn't messed with me, but we'll see. Blood was 5.9 yesterday morning, and we grabbed breakfast at Gatwick - a rather nice porridge, since you didn't ask. Flew to Zagreb on EasyJet, which was...well, it was EasyJet. When we arrived at Zagreb, Peter picked up the car, and the rest of us hid, not wanting to be put on the list as 'secondary driver'. That meant of course that one of us had to be 'navigator.' To my ongoing mystification, that was me.

Now, most of you won't know this, but I have no natural navigation skills whatsoever. I get lost coming out of restaurant bathrooms. And no, I'm not just trying to be funny - I've ended up in the kitchen plenty of times. When d tries to direct me, she's long abandoned the idea of using such primitive concepts as 'left' and 'right' - I can find about a hundred and eighty right turns in a circle, given my head. She uses 'wedding-ring-hand' and 'non-wedding-ring-hand' because it's at least a little more reliable. And no, I don't know why it should be, but it is. I once went for a job interview, map in hand, and came out of a tube station, and boldly,confidently even, turned right. It was only after half an hour of walking that I realised that none of the landmarks I was expecting to see were in fact visible. I turned the map upside down and realisation dawned. This would have been stupid enough on its own, but the fact that the job interview was with an organisation called the Royal Institute of Navigation just added an extra piquancy to the whole episode. My friend Sian can attest to an outing to a lecture when we were teenagers. She was driving, I had the map. "Which way?" she asked, innocently. "Erm...left," I said, again with some confidence. We ended up in a horrendous one-way system of endless left turns. We never got to the lecture. It became known as the "Wrong Left That Looked Right" incident. I've even got lost in a straight line - yes, of course I know that shouldn't be possible. But if you're supposed to be at Point X on a straight line, and you're actually at Point Y, thinking you're at Point X and swearing blind that's where you are, trust me, it's possible.

"Really?" I said, eyeing the passenger seat with suspicion. "You want me to navigate? I mean, really??"
"You'll be fine," said Peter, handing me a Garmin satnav. Normally, this would have been the kiss of death - me, navigation and technology. I shuddered, and got into the baking little Opel 4-door. "Really you will. What could possibly go wrong?"
Clearly, he needs educating, poor man.

The first thing that could go wrong was that the address we were going to...apparently didn't exist. I entered something on the same street, figuring this would be close enough. As a matter of interest, I'm reading Homer's Iliad at the moment, and for a second, I felt the shiver of gods laughing at me. But we set off, and marvelled at the beauty of Croatia. Seriously, just go - the words I could use simply don't do it justice - forests, mountains, gorges, twisting little roads that the Top Gear team would love, the Garmin basically did the job, allowing me to boggle at it all as we baked. We spotted all sorts of things that made Sally-Anne squeal, from the number of dive centres along Croatia's coast to the naturist camp half an hour from our hotel.

It was only a hundred and twenty miles later that things started to go a bit skewiff. Important little fact #1 - apparently, even a brand new, fresh out of the box satnav has mapping that's abooooout two years old. Important little fact #2 - Croatia is working its ass off right now to improve itself, both for the purposes of tourism, and to make itself look smart when it goes for the interview for EU membership. The conference we were attending was on an island called Krk (it's one of two islands, and if I'm honest, I'm having difficulty thinking of the second island as anything but Spck). The Garmin told us to turn "second left". There was left...or there was right. We turned left.
"Recalculating" said the Garmin, cheerily, in a kind of "Ohhh, don't worry, happens all the time" tone. She sent us round the block and brought us back to the same junction. "Turn second left," she said, this time with the forceful pleasantness of a primary-school teacher. Working on the principle that if the available left was wrong, maybe she meant the other left. We turned right.
"Re...calculating," she said, with the tight-jawed fury that is usually only found when a woman says she's "fine." She sent us round a different block, and brought us back to the same junction.
"Turn SECOND right," she said, this time appearing to add "you idiots" at the end. We tried to make her happy - we turned right then left.
"Re...bloody...calculating, she said.
"They've rebuilt!" Sally-Anne realised. She's trying to take us down a street that doesn't exist anymore!"
I pulled her plug, and we drove around following...of all things...street signs. Got to our hotel in a matter of minutes. There's probably a lesson there...

The lady at reception was brusque and efficient. Peter asked if there was an iron in the room.
"No," she said. "Is forbidden..."
"What?" we said. "It's forbidden to be uncrumpled in Croatia?"
"Yes," she said, smiling, pleased we understood.
"Ooooookay," we said. Turned out irnoing wasn't the only dangerous activity that was forbidden in Croatian hotels. Direct line calls to the room from outside too, were forbidden, it seemed.
"I have to draw a line," she said, as if we were asking to cover her in blancmange and bugger her with a naturist in a snorkel.

On the upside, the room was a thing of beauty, with its own balcony and a view of the nearby mountains. On the even upper side, we had access to the gym, spa and indoor and outdoor pools at the nearby hotel. Sally-Anne and I went to check them out before the evening reception and dinner. No bike, unfortunately, but there was a cross trainer - wow, I've forgotten how much that hurts after only a short time - an abductor-bench...which will come in handy when I give birth to my children, and a pull-down weight bar, with which I whacked myself on the head. We looked longingly at the pool, but had to get back for the reception. Listened to a movingly beautifully acapella group, which was like listening to a miniature male voice choir, and moved on to dinner. which in my case was tomato soup, bread and a little veal risotto. Which overall is not a bad food day.

Then there was wine. And talking. And more wine, and more talking and wine, and wine, and even more wine, and snoring, and no blog.

This morning, the news is that the Icelandic ash cloud is moving down over Europe today. In that event, there are two options - either we stay here, on this gorgeous idyllic island...or we drive home through country after country. So this is me, heading out to nick the spark plugs out of the car...

Off To Croatia In The Morning...

Well here we are - made it back to the UK at gone midnight last night, slept ridiculoulsy late. Figured that as I've been away from my scales for a week, and will be away come Tuesday for a second weigh-in, I'd do you an interim weigh-in this morning. Scores on the doors, as they used to say:

19 stone 3.25.

So - Eleven weeks should have seen me lose 22 pounds, and at the moment I've lost 18 and a smidgen. So, at the moment I'm two weeks behind schedule. Also of course, come Tuesday, I'd 'need' to have lost another two. But we'll see where I am a week from now. Right now, I'm pretty damn happy that after a week in the Land of Plenty, I've not only not put on any weight, but have actually pushed the numbers down, despite not really doing any hard exercise. I think possibly the upside was a) stress working on me, and b) working on a better daily schedule - I mean getting up reasonably early, getting out to do some walking, being in different places, going here and there, and going to bed at a reasonable time...rather than my traditional routine of getting up and sitting on my ass all day.

Am going to Croatia tomorrow for three days of conference. It's on the coast, and is supposed to be a kickass venue...to hold potentially dull conferences. So I guess here's to another week of a changed routine, though hopefully (since I'm staying in a hotel), one with more active exercise in it.

The Last Supper

What would you choose for your last meal if you knew the world was ending tomorrow?
I think for mine, I'd start with fajitas...moving on to goulash with breadcrumb-pasta and a side of scalloped rosemary potatoes, and to finish...well...probably everything sweet ever invented...a whoremongous icrecream sundae the size of a small child, more cake than you could comfortably conceive, a kind of spiky croquenbouche of canolis...and a whole pan of d's gorgeous cornbread, all washed down with litres of ice-cold cherry Diet Coke.

I mention all this for a couple of reasons. Firstly of course...today is *cough, cough* Judgment Day, apparently. I was quite happy to laugh at this quietly until the news reports started coming in about the woman arrested for trying to kill her children and herself to escape "The Tribulation" that's apparently to come. Once tomorrow's over with, and the End spectacularly fails to come, I think we should charge the Armaggeddonists as accessories to attempted murder.

But I'm also mentioning this because last night was...well, our last night, here in New York, so everything had a final feel to it. We stayed and d fed Rita her dinner again, and again she ate it all. So the "Last Supper" we saw her eat was tuna mac and salad, vegetable soup and ice cream. In the event that we don't make it back here again before Rita passes, and although it absolutely won't be the last supper she eats, it'll be the one we always picture that way. Our last supper of this trip was in two parts - we stopped off for a half pizza sub, split between us, then went back to the house, for barbecue - burgers and hot dogs and baked beans, oh my...

Leaving Rita this time was unbearably hard. As usual, she fell asleep just after dinner, and we took her down to see Larry, who was also pretty drowsy. We stayed with them a while, and it seemed like we'd be leaving them together when we left...and that would have been at least OK, and picturesque. But then Rita said she'd like to go to bed. And it would have been unavoidable that our last view of her, certainly for this trip, would have been of her tiny frail spasming body, dwarfed in sheets and in an unrousable slumber. We'd called in earlier to see if Josie Arcadipane was up and about, but she'd had a bad day herself, and was asleep. But like a gift from providence, or coincidence, or a god if you believe in them, as we went down the corridor to Rita's room, we passed Josie's door again, and found her up, and bright, and with John for company. We wheeled her in, and for that moment, she was bright herself, and animated and laughing - the Arcadipane Factor making itself felt again. And so, while leaving her and walking out the door feels horrible, it doesn't really feel like that's what we did. It feels right, leaving her there among the Arcadipanes...like leaving her among a garden of the best and brightest flowers, warmed and brightened and made young again by the energy of that amazing family...

These Shoes Were Made For Walking

I have to report a death.

It's been coming a long while, and has involved a process of long, slow, occasionally painful decay, and this week, the end came. I wish I could say I was nicer to the deceased than I was, but frankly, by the time they finally died, everyone who knew them was sick to the back teeth of them.

I'm talking, of course, about my walking shoes.

Really, I should have more of a sentimental glint in my eye - I bought these shoes about three or four years ago, so they've been with me through some amazing times. They've also been with me practically every day of that time. But, when all is said and done...meh, they're shoes.

I bought them with ruggedness and comfort over long distances in mind, in preparation of one of the craziest things I've ever done. When I was altogether more disappeared than I am now, I decided I was fit enough to so Maggies' annual Night Walk. For those who don't know what that is, Maggies is a charity that provides cancer recovery centres, and every year, thousands of people gather in London one night and walk through the night to raise money to fund its work. The year I did it, we covered 20 miles in the one night. I then collapsed into bed, having completed the walk, and soaked my blisters for a day and a half. But it was worth doing, just to see if I could. An example, as d would put it, of my bastard-stubborn streak. As I say, I was about half a stone lighter than what I was the last time I weighed when I did it, so maybe, just maybe, if I can continue to disappear this year, I might give it another try...we'll see. But the shoes were a nod to the seriousness of doing something like this. They were good shoes, serious walking shoes. They carried me through my subsequent year of joining a gym and gaining two stone of flab, and on this experiment so far, they've carried me through blisters, thigh-burn and a broken exercise bike. They were good, faithful shoes.

But for quite a while now, they were getting the footwear equivalent of Alzheimers'. They were losing their vigour, and cracking up, and letting in the damp, and looking as dishevelled as if they'd downed a bottle of Jack before I slipped my feet into them, and groaning slightly with the exertion I still demanded of them. I'd like to claim they'd taken to wandering off in random directions, but sadly, that's just me and my navigational incompetence.

So, two days ago, employing the 'Ole Yeller' school of compassion, I left them behind in a Payless Shoe Store in Buffalo for some poor unsuspecting teller to dispose of, and walked out in some new, interim, cheapo shoes with more than a touch of 'geriatric holidaymaker' about them. To be fair, these new shoes only really have to carry me to payday, when some new 'proper' walking shoes might be on the cards. After all, there's still a lot of disappearing to do - you can't really commit to that sort of thing in cheapo geriatric shoes, can you?

Blood was 5.6 this morning, so yay for pizza subs and walking round the district.

Rehearsals

Did I mention? The world needs more Arcadipanes. For those who don't know what an Arcadipane is, check back to the "America The Beautiful" entry...or wait till the end of this sentence, where I explain again that the Arcadipanes are the cool arm of d's family here in the States. If I didn't already have an awesome family back home (see "Tell Me About Your Parents..."), I'd be making Beagle-pup eyes at them right about now and begging them to adopt me. I'm sure we'd get around the whole thing about my atheism and their Catholicism fairly easily...right?

Today was a day which, once again, could easily have been overwhelmingly depressing. We met the Hospice nurse at the Healthcare Centre, where Rita, my mother-in-law, was still (or back) asleep at 11AM. I should mention, the Hospice nurse was named Karen. She introduced us to the Hospice social worker...who was also named Karen. Truly, I live in a world of Karens. d and I introduced them both to Larry, my brother-in-law. A little background was necessary there - and it's necessary here as well. Having heard d recite the story more times than is probably healthy over the last few days, it goes like this:
Larry is d's brother. He's 53, and he lives in the same Healthcare Centre as his mom, as the result of a catastrophic car accident back in 1999. He's in a semi-paralytic state - while it's estimated he's 85% mentally intact, he now has physical control - and then only some - of his left arm and his left leg. He can't eat, has a trache for assisted breathing, can't speak, and is basically living the stuff of nightmares, as an active mind trapped in an almost-entirely useless body. Besides their primary purpose of ensuring that Rita is made as comfortable as possible in her last months on this planet, a key point of engaging the Hospice team is to be there to help Larry with his grief when his mother passes. This was a lesson that was learned the hard way when his father (who also by then lived at the Healthcare Centre) passed away a couple of Christmasses ago. Hospice tried to help Larry then too - but one of the important things to know is that he does not do well with strangers, or with people taking too many liberties too fast...if you imagine being trapped in a body where the most basic freedoms of choice are denied you - the freedom to say "don't touch me, I don't like it", the freedom to express your rage or frustration, your grief and sadness, in anything like the way you want - then you should be able to understand his reactions. So they couldn't get near him at the time he needed them. This time, we're adamant it'll be done the right way, with a phase-in of these people, so that they can be there for him at a time when, facing reality, we won't be.

We all came back to Rita's room, and were joined by Nancy and Josie Arcadipane. So that's me, d, two Karens, two Arcadipanes and Larry, all crowded round Rita's bed, where, except for spasms of pain, she was regularly falling back into a fitful sleep. Josie and Larry were both in wheelchairs, adding to the crush. And the unmistakable wave came over me that this was a rehearsal of a death-bed scene, for the real version of which I wouldn't be present. Josie added to the atmosphere, by talking about going to a better place and the Good Lord opening his arms to Rita. It was a solemn and stomach-flipping moment, this unintentional rehearsal, and with simple words in which I don't believe, Josie still managed to make it better. How? Very simple - it's not my death-scene, it doesn't matter what I believe. Josie believes it, and Rita believes it, and right at that moment, that was the epitome of the Hospice principle brought to life - making the end of someone's time as comfortable as possible. So despite my atheism, there was power in Josie's words because they made things better for Rita, which there and then made things better for us all. I did say she was an example of the best kind of Christian.

As a bunch of us moved out to take Larry for a walk, so he and d could grieve together, Nancy again came into her own. Rita didn't properly understand the nature of the Karens, but Nancy (who has worked most of her life as a nurse), happened to know Karen-2, and she stayed behind to buck Rita up as she'd done a few days ago, and introduce Karen-2 as 'a friend of mine who's gonna be helping you and Larry.' I might be wrong, but there seemed to be something so simple and easy in that line that I'd be very surprised if it didn't sink in. She's a natural carer, is Nancy, just like her mom. Truly, I'm thinking a healthcare system crammed to the gills with Arcadipane women would be the envy of the world...

d and I went for lunch with Nancy, to catch up on some missing history. Details here would drag us off the point, but suffice it to say some chunks of mystery came into a clear focus and demystified for us. Then we went back to the Healthcare Centre. Both the Karens had gone, Larry was having a post lunch-bag nap, and Rita still hadn't gotten up. Part of the Hospice principle of course is that patients have control - if they don't want to get up, they don't have to. If they don't want to eat, they don't have to. We chatted a while with Josie, and something else came into clear focus for me for the first time. As well as making Rita's last months easier and more comfortable, part of the Hospice brief is to see that Larry's cared for when she passes. But here's the thing - this caring for Larry also feeds back into Rita's care, because the two of them have been entirely co-dependent now for so long - they are each other's reason for living, essentially - that the logic runs that seeing him cared for would ease her passing, and make it more likely that she would relinquish the hold on a now permanently-painful existence, going out on a great sigh of relief, as it were.

Josie said to me:
"I spoke to Rita not long ago. She said that knowing that Donna [d] is taken care of gives her peace...You've already given her peace..."

Hit me like a truck, that one. I'd understood the logic as far as Larry was concerned. Why it didn't occur to me that Rita would also be anxious to see her daughter settled, content and at peace herself, I have no idea, but it hadn't. Hopefully now, if the hospice phase-in works, we'll be able to do our best for her and give her the peace she needs to slip into a greater peace in which she has a complete faith.

We went out for another breath of air, took in the local historical society, (note to self: do further research on William Seward, seems fascinating), and went back to the Healthcare Centre once more. Met up with Aurie (Larry's long-term girlfriend since before the accident). Made plans to go for dinner with her. Then met Rita in the hallway - she'd been gotten up, rather against her will, and was grumpy. Hastily rearranged plans, and stayed to help her eat her dinner...which she thought was breakfast. Throughout the meal, and immediately afterward, she fell asleep, almost unrousably. Woke her up just long enough to get her to bed. Went for one final visit to the Arcadipanes, and ran into John, the last of 'our' generation of the family I had yet to meet. It occurs to me I should probably mention that all or most of the Arcadipanes I've met so far are seriously ill themselves - Josie's in the Healthcare Centre recoving from major heart surgery, Nancy has MS, Red, Nancy's dad, has Alzheimers' and dodgy kidneys, and John, this latest Arcadipane, has something utterly ghastly and painful that begins with "Tri-" and goes on for another fourteen syllables. And yet they're jolly, and funny, and thoughful and, which is more, effective pain relievers. John not only gave us a lift to a place he'd recommended we grab a bite of dinner (which, coincidentally, was the place we'd intended to go anyway!), he introduced us to the manager, and told him we were his cousins and that he should take care of us, before driving away with a cheery wave. The manager was great, and gave us both entirely wonderful pizza subs while quizzing us enthusiastically about all things English. The perfect end to what could have been a horrible day, but - again, largely thanks to the influence of these Arcadipanes - became probably the single best Healthcare Centre'd day either of us has had in about seven years.

I say again, the world needs more Arcadipanes. If you don't have one, you should really think about getting one. Today.

Blood this morning was 6.5. Still no treadmilling done, and the pizza sub was technically a bad idea, but given that we've walked quite a distance today, I'm not sweating it. Going to bed now to prepare for what could be quite a gruelling day, with a plane flight at the end of it.

Signs Of The End?

Intended to treadmill my ass off last night, but for some reason, come 8.30, I was exhausted - ended up going upstairs to bed and sleeping nearly twelve hours. Clearly snoring is my new exercise of choice.

Today, we almost had a day off from the business of healthcare centre visiting - apart from a couple of calls from social workers and pastors, we were out and about with Lori and Dominic in Buffalo. Right from the start, the day had a slightly surreal sense to it. We arrived at the Galleria Mall in Buffalo, attempting to pull into a parking space that was being vacated. I blinked at the license plate.
"DIED4ME" it read.

So that's that cleared up - you can call off the CSI team. Apparently Jesus the Gallilean wasn't killed for inflammatory speech and rabble-rousing, or for blasphemy against the Sanhedrin, or for any of the...y'know...potentially real reasons why it might have been in almost everybody's interests to get rid of an apocalyptic preacher trying to overthrow the established order. He was killed for some dick in a Buffalo car park. Good to know, eh?

While walking around the Mall, we spotted a classic indictment of the American school system at a fast food stand. A sign invited passers-by to take advantage of its crazy one-day offer - "$1 offal smoothies."
If that wasn't appetizing enough, we saw the flipside of the same sign when we came back through. "$5 -Pepperoni pizza and a small sod," if offered. I realise of course the last word doesn't have the same import in the States as it does in the UK, but even with its ordinary meaning of "a clump of earth", it was difficult to see the offer enticing too many passers-by.

On the way back to the house, Dominic was overtaking a truck in the rain, when there was an unfamiliar flashing behind us. No, not a naked man in a raincoat, but a State Trooper, pulling us over. You've seen it a million times on TV and in the movies, but when these guys John Wayne up to you, it's still waaaay more intimidating than it would be if some spotty 12-year old gangly British youth knocked on your window.
"License and registration please," said the Trooper, and Dom handed them over. "Let's see some ID," added the paragon of local law enforcement. Dom handed over his Sheriff's Office ID.
The Tropper frowned.
"Does this belong to you?" he asked. Dom affirmed that it did. The Tropped frowned some more. "Where d'you work?" he asked.
"Sheriff's Office," said Dominic, a little redundantly, given the ID he'd handed over. The Trooper coughed, a little embarrassed.
"Don't be shy to whip that out," he instructed, handing all the documents back and touching his hat. "You have a good day now..."
And with that, we were free to go. A particularly cool kind of blag, that one.

We went out for dinner, to a place called the Texas Roadhouse, where, because it was Michael's birthday, I was commanded to utter only the second "Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaa!!!" of my life. For those still following the dietary aspects of this blog, that means for the second day runing, I've only eaten two meals and only taken two of the lethal little Xenical pills. My blood this morning was 6.3, and I'm still holding to the idea of not putting on too much over these two weeks, and then returning to my disciplined routine and hopefully pushing the weight further down again...

It's entirely possible of course that I'm making this theory up as I go along. On the other hand of course, we could all be dead by Saturday, if the lunatic group of Christians here in the States who have prophesied "as an absolute fact" that Judgment Day is kicking off on the 21st of May. I mean, don't get me wrong, it would be an extreme weightloss plan...but thankfully of course, they're mental.

Me And Stephen Fry

I'm listening to the audiobook of the first volume of Stephen Fry's autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot, while I'm here in the States, and there's a section where he raves about the joy that he gets from music. He talks about the ecstatic levels of wonder that music can take him to, the resonance it sets off deep in his mind, the universality of the experience and the million shades of pleasure it can bring. And then, in one exquisitely loud sentence, he bemoans the fact that despite appreciating it on so many different levels, he "CAN'T FUCKING DO IT!" He's not tone deaf, he just can't sing or dance in public...at all. It's a deep psychological issue and it makes his life more than a little miserable, because he'd love to be able to do it, and he just...just...can't.

Now when I first heard that, I felt deeply sorry for Stephen, because I...erm...can. I apparently have perfect pitch, and while of course, like everyone else, I have my range, I can follow tunes exactly, and have a pretty good sense of musicality. I can even dance in public, though I do tend to resemble a kind of love-child of Peter Griffin and Luna Lovegood, much, I'm sure, to the mortification of my wife. But the self-conscious thing? Not gonna happen. In fact, I'm never without a tune in my head, and they often leak out, even when I'm not intending them to.
"You're leaking, dear," d will tell me with an increasingly weary forbearance. I can't help it - it's a part of the irritating sod I am.

So there was I, feeling a little superior to Stephen Fry (which is not a sentence you normally get to use on any given day). And then this morning happened.

This morning, I struggled out of bed. We didn't have to meet the Hospice care team till 2PM, so I figured it was a good time to try out the treadmill here. d said Lori had already left for work though, so we could walk down to the diner, have breakfast and walk back (Lori, it appeared, was the mistress of the treadmill, and keeper of its mystical secrets). As we walked, d started up a running commentary.
"Japanese Maples there look. They're worth an absolute fortune. Those are lilacs....and dogwoods...and is that apple blossom? Oh look, a fir tree..."
She was gesturing vaguely at various bits of scenery as we walked, but as far as I was concerned, she could have been talking about Japanese Nipples, Lilos, Dogbreath and Apple Cider...It was like...you know when you buy a DVD and it gives you the option ot watch it in a long list of languages, and you always wonder what would happen if you selected "Suomi" but you're never entirely sure which part of the world exactly Suomi comes from, and a little bit paranoid that you'll never see the menu again, so you choose English and then forever wonder what would have happened? It was like somebody had selected Suomi as d's language track for the day.

And it hit me - I can't do horticulture. I mean, she pointed out a pair of Japanese Maples to me, but I can guarantee you, when we walk past them next, I won't think to myself "Oh look, Japanese Maples". I'll think "Oh look...red ones."

The more she tried to point out the identity of this plant and that flower, and some other tree, the more I realised that the world of instant recognition of all the fantastic wonder in nature is a land that is forever lost to me. And I don't like that fact because, quite apart from anything else, as an aspiring writer of novels, it would be much better to be able to write "the dogwoods nodded in the gentle breeze" rather than "the white ones nodded in the gentle breeze" - it's far more precise and makes people think you know what you're talking about - always an advantage in a writer. But more than that, I want to know these things, simply for the pleasure of being able to know them, to feel able to put a kind of kinship with nature into proper words, because without the words that identify them, my experience of the natural world, which I deeply love, feels half-blind and insensible.

I know, I know - plenty of people have real problems, shut the hell up, ya ponce. But to be able to look at an oak tree, and recognise it only as 'a tree' seems to me to be a particularly stupid lack of sensibility, and it annoys me rather to be cut off from the recognition of specifics in nature.

Still, on the upside, I suppose it means I have at least something in common with Stephen Fry. Result!

No blood results today, and no weigh-in for the first Tuesday in eleven weeks. The day's not out yet, and I sort of half-heartedly still intend to jump on the treadmill later tonight. No bloody trees to confuse me on a treadmill...

America The Beautiful

I'm struck, every time I come here, to the American small town where my wife grew up, how very very different it is to anything I've ever experienced. The wood-framed houses, with their neat lawns and distinct demarcations, and rows and rows of American flags on the lawn...on flagpoles...draped in doorways. It took me a while not to freak out at this much patriotism so unashamedly displayed, because in the UK, (ahem...unless there's a royal wedding or somesuch celebration of inherited privilege going on), that kind of patriotism has been appropriated and twisted by the kind of people who would have supported Hitler, but who Hitler would have shunned on the grounds that he didn't want followers that stupid. Maybe it's just the mark of a post-imperial society that patriotism became tied up with (usually white) man's inhumanity to (usually not-white) man, and so in the 21st century, any such certainty that one's country is a force for good  tends to be viewed as naive and dangerous in the UK. This is not a viewpoint that has gained any noticeable ground here, so it's easy to assume a world-weary sneer and say "Ohhh, you'll learn..." - but that would be to miss the simple wholesomeness of the American Idea - that the nation IS a force for good, and that Americans, in both their ordinary lives, and in their highest offices, have a real duty to ensure that this remains the case. It's a difference in mindset that is evident in every little thing over here. Take the two countries' respective national anthems - the British "God Save The Queen" is an anthem demanding that a deity ensures the ongoing safety and rule of an unelected monarch. If you're a monarchist, that's great, but in its fundamentals, its an unevolved and unevolving plea to be downtrodden, and the only thing that changes is the person you're asking to be ruled by. At its heart, it's a small idea. Compare and contrast that with "The Star-Spangled Banner" - a song of struggle against oppression, of valiant self-determination, of the land of the free and the home of the brave. Now you can say it's twee, you can say it's a glorification of war, you can say it whitewashes over a history of conflict and the extermination of an indigenous people. But what you can't deny is the breadth of its vision - it's an anthem of self-determination, of limitless potential and togetherness in the idea of opportunity. And importantly, it contains the capacity for its own evolution - today's land of the free and today's home of the brave is not by any means the same as it was when the song was written, and the words mean different things to everyone who puts a hand on their heart and sings it, but the core of its idea is still true and pure and simple - everyone is charged to do their part for the good of the nation and the things they think it stands for, as those before them have stood, and fought, and died to make it what it is today. That's why, I think, when Americans sing their anthem, it means something to them, and they do it proudly. That's why, I think, it's fine to fly the flag if you want to. Because the nobility of the American Idea is still intact, and will continue to be intact, almost irrespective of complex history or a potentially murky future.

People in this town often don't lock the doors to their houses, or their cars. I used to think this meant they were nuts, and deserved to be burgled. But I was missing the point. It's a small town, and the idea of society is still very much alive here. Such things just aren't...(shrugs)...done. I mean, undoubtedly, such things are done, but there's no expectation of needing to guard against them. This came back to me at breakfast this morning - d and I walked down to a local diner, where not only are refils of your coffee absolutely free, but you can leave the money to tip your waitresses laying on your table, get up and leave. In the heart of the world's leading light of capitalism, people will give you as many refils as you can drink, and they don't fear anyone else running off with their money. Again, it's just not done. In the heart of capitalism, the idea of society is alive and well. Whereas in London, if you want a second cup, you have to pay for a second cup, and tipping is neither really expected nor necessary, so serving staff have no incentive to give a rat's ass if you're happy...and so they don't. Call me crazy, but I think we're the ones who are getting it wrong.

In case you're wondering, yes, absolutely, today's entry is turning into a rambling splurge of Americana. I'm in an American frame of mind. If it bores you, feel free to skip ahead. Surely though, it's better than my usual Monday fretting about "oooh, will I have lost anything, or put on a pound in the morning..." isn't it?

If I was weighing tomorrow, I don't think it'd be a good report, because I have yet to get on the treadmill here, and while not going nuts, I'm eating proper meals. But as it happens, I'm not weighing tomorrow, and if I'm honest, I don't care - I figure while I'm away from my normal routine, I'll do the best I can, maintain the weight if I can, and then, when I get back, I'll hit it again with the walking and cycling on the repaired bike, and get properly back on track.

In the meantime, I've been ticking off my American icons. This morning on the walk, I saw my first yellow school bus of the trip, and my first genuine, in-progress, Amish buggy ever. I'm not keen on the literalisation of the effect of religion that the Amish represent, but you have to admit that, for better or worse, they also represent a genuine commitment to the idea of religious freedom. We talk a big game about civil liberties in the UK, but it's impossible to imagine that an Amish community would be allowed to separate themselves from the world and live the way they want to live in a block of council flats in Wapping!

Later in the day, I was introduced to American icons of an entirely different kind. While visiting with my mother-in-law, I met the Arcadipanes.
Now, to you, this means nothing, but the Arcadipanes are legends to me. They're the side of d's family who made her growing up not only bearable but sometimes, fun. Now I understand why. They're delicious and mad as a bag of snakes, and they gibber - by which I mean, they talk nonsense for fun, just as d and I do. Good gibber is the mark of a person I can really appreciate and get on with - almost everyone I count as a real friend does it.

First, I met Josie - an ageing matriarch, to be sure, but one with the sort of crinkled kindness in her face that I haven't seen in two decades, since I lost a friend of mine called Emmie. Josie, I'm told, does everything for everyone, and talking to her, you can well believe it. Deeply faithful, she's the kind of person who translates her faith into action, not by preaching but by putting herself out to bring others whatever they might need - from a smile and a hug to a home-baked cookie to a shoulder to cry on and more. She's the kind of Christian, in short, who is a genuinely good advertisement for her chosen path, and I liked her instantly, and a lot. Next I met Nancy, her daughter, of whom I've heard stories of fun and laughter as kids, of camping trips and "Don't you do what Nancy does" and being a force of nature. And so she is - she's not loud, but she leaves you with a loud and colourful impression. She's funny, and insightful and altogether pretty wonderful, and the thing that sealed her in my affections was that she could do all this while bucking up Rita, my mother-in-law, who was having a bad day. She made her laugh, and chatted along, and all the while, she fed her some lunch without focusing on the fact that she was Feeding Her Lunch. She's a force of nature all right, but one with a good heart and a delicate touch. Finally, I met Sam, Nancy's brother. Didn't have as much time with him as the others, but he's a dedicated smartass and first-class gibberer, who had come from cooking his dad some lunch and was going back to work. Good people, all of them, and they lightened a day that could otherwise have been grim - we met with the care team today, to confirm a shift to palliative care for Rita. So here's to the Arcadipanes, who trust to their god, and laugh, and strive together to be the best human beings they can be.

There's nothing more beautifully American than that.

The Clothes They Stood Up In

Well - yesterday was fun. Up at 8ish, final packing, and on the road to the airport. As usual, there were engineering works on the Tube, so I did a check that the line we were using was available. It was. What I didn't check was that the station we were going to was open. It was open to all lines...except the one we were using. So a rapid change of plan, getting off a station early and cabbing it to Paddington. Dropped over sixty quid on Heathrow Express tickets, got there, everything was fine, got on a plane to Chicago. The plane to Chicago had an arrival time that sssssssttttrrrrrrreeeeeetched, putting us on the ground almost an hour late. Originally, we'd only had a couple of hours to get through US Customs, claim our bag, get a monorail over to the domestic terminal, go through security and find our gate for the connecting flight to Buffalo, New York.
As we sat there on the taxiway in Chicago, technically arrived but going nowhere, the pilot came on the tannoy: "Errr....ladies and gentlement, there's fog here in Chicago..." We knew there was - we had windows. "So there's a bit of a line for parking spots, we're gonna be stuck here for about fifteen minutes..." Mentally, we kissed goodbye to our connecting flight. "On the upside," he said, "there's fog here...erm...for everyone...so if you're trying to get a connecting flight...they're probably delayed too." Gee...thanks.

Just as we were getting off the plane, he came over the tannoy again. "Err, folks, if you're connecting to one of the following cities, see the attendants in the blue and orange jackets when you get off the plane..." he said, listing a host of cities, including Buffalo. We hunted down an attendant and she handed us a bright orange wallet, with our connecting tickets in. Express Routeing turned out to be fun, as we followed this shouty but pleasant young lady in a small snake of orange-powered connectors through the airport. The US Customs hall was unreal. It was like Customs at the gates of Hell - people thronged, crammed in snaking lines that filled the entire hall. We, with our shouty lady leader, bypassed them all, being led to the channel for US Military personnel and Diplomats. That caused a minor altercation, as one lady not blessed with the power of orange tried to push into the orange line, and had to be told by an armed officer to get to the back of the line. I felt for her, but there really wasn't time to quibble about it. We got through customs in record time, and together, which made a pleasant change.Then we waited for our bag. It was endless and agonising as bag after bag after bag turned out not to be ours. Finally, about ten minutes after our connecting flight was supposed to have left, I flagged down another shouty blue-and-orange-jacketed woman, to ask for details of the Buffalo flight.
"Oh, delayed at least two hours," she said. "Don't rush."
Yeah, right.
Not rushing is not really in our make-up in airports. At least not until we're where we're supposed to be. So when our bag finally showed up, we took off, waving our orange wallet at everyone who tried to stop us. Customs Part 2 were fine, waving us on our way. The monorail was fine, and I think I only elbowed one pensioner to the floor in the busines of getting on it - not bad by Chicago standards - and before we knew it, we were racing to the security line, bag in hand, determined to take the bag on the plance with us, rather than checking it again.
"NOOOOOOOO!!!" yelled the third and most crotchety of our trilogy of shouty women - rather stopping us in our tracks.
"What?" we said.
"You can't take your bag through security!" she...well, notsomuch explained as ordered, bullying us to give the bag up to a uniformed, stern-faced man who clearly agreed with her in her assessment of our intellect. We were clearly too stupid to be in his country. We watched the bag disappear through a curtain with a little trepidation, then turned to the business of taking off our shoes and trying to look innocent.

Once we were well-shod again, we ran to a screen. The Buffalo flight wasn't on it! We started making our way to Gate G4, where it was supposed to be, checking screens whenever possible. Gate G4 is, not to put too fine a point on it, a fuck of a long way from security, so we checked quite a few screens on the way, and none of them showed the flight...until.
"Buffalo!" shouted d. "Gate G17!" Pop quiz - G17 - nearer, or further away, would you say?
Yeah, quite. Now all that mattered was the departure time.
"5.45!" called d. She looked at her watch. It was 5.45!
We ran. Not a pleasant experience, probably not a pleasant sight, but needs must. We ran and ran and ran and slammed into the desk at G17.
"You're not gonna get on this flight," said the woman behind the desk. She wasn't shouty. We wondered whether it might be our turn - bear in mind it was nearly midnight by our body clocks by this point. Anyway, there was much tension and drama, but we waved our orange envelopes and looked a bit pathetic and British and, certainly in my case, a bit scarlet from the run, as though if I didn't get on this flight, my head might explode. And they let us on.

Arriving in Buffalo, we were met by Lori, and by Michael, her step-son. What we were not met by though was anything resembling our bag. Apparently a whole lot of luggage hadn't made it on the flight, and there wasn't another flight into Buffalo that night.

We went for dinner (at what was, according to our bodies, 4AM), and so now, we've been in the same clothes - certainly the same underwear - for going on 36 hours. As yet, the case hasn't turned up. All of which makes me not a little glad that, faced with eight hours of international plane flight, I'd seen fit to self-non-medicate, and take no pills of any kind during the trip over here.

Now, you'll have to excuse me - there's a trip to Wal-Mart planned. I need to buy myself some new pants...

And So To Narnia...

And so we’re out of here, heading to Western New York. Or Narnia, as I think of it. d tells me this is ‘only’  because I’ve only ever been there in February, but it’s always...freaking...snowing in Western New York. I mean...just...always. It’s become something of an exhausted joke, to the point where it’s almost crossed a threshold in my brain from “Hahaha...Narnia” to “No, seriously, it’s always snowing here!”

d tells me I’m going to swelter over there this time, because it’s “Spring”. And I’m having to actually work quite hard to believe her, because it’s become so ingrained a scene in my head – Western New York=White. Endless vistas of white, and the need for huge boots and layers and layers of clothes. Scraping windshields with credit cards and driving through blizzards.

It’s also of course, more really, the ultimate test of my Perspex boxes and my resolve. When we last went over, just three months ago, I felt a huuuuuge pull to fizzy drinks and sweet things – on one serious occasion, I had to get d to rescue me from my buckling resolve in the ice-cream aisle of Wegmans, the local supermarket. Without her, I would probably have fallen, and inhaled the whole cabinet. I’d have been found hours later, like one of those woolly mammoths, encased in ice, with my Neanderthal beard smeared in frozen Pecan Caramel Twist. And that was when there were just two injunctions I was trying to maintain.

Now of course, there are at least another couple of dangerlines – fat has become biologically dangerous. Coffee now has to be de-caff, or ‘old person coffee,’ as d helpfully calls it. Fried foods are – mainly – out. It’s kind of like the Perspex box becomes a lattice of electrified webbing, like a mixture of temptation and potential mayhem. And the point is, America is such a beautiful place – it has such a comparatively healthy attitude to pleasure that even their baked potatoes come with butter and sour cream. Everything comes with half a dozen extras, and that’s simply because Americans are just so joyfully generous about food, and opportunity, and life in general. The attitude of meanness in which this experiment has to be conducted is utterly at odds with the environment into which I’m taking it. How I’ll do, I don’t know. But I’m gonna give it a try...

Oh yeah, I meant to mention - you know I've been working on the principle of getting one blog entry out per day (Blogger failures notwithstanding). Well of course, some of the entries I've posted have been near to the wire in terms of time. So the question obviously is - am I sticking to Greenwich Mean Time, or am I shifting to New York time?

I thought for a long time I'd stick with GMT. Then I bitchslapped myself and thought - That would mean getting every entry out by 7PM New York time. Very often in the day, the things that make a blog haven't even happened to me by that time. Yesterday's twitch entry being a perfect case in point. So bite me, I'm going New York time, which means Brits, for the next week, you might not get your daily dose of rampant ego and nonsense till five in the following morning. I'm sure you'll deall with it. If not, what can I tell ya? Fuggeddabouuudddit....