Did any of you see the headline yesterday that said "Diet Drinks Make You Fat"?
Well, excuse me if I throw in a vaguely smug cry of "Fuckin' d'uh!"
Number one, things lke Diet Coke still have the caramel in, so you're still basically getting a fizzy sugar-syrup. Number two, these things are put out there by businesspeople and marketeers. Watch just one episode of The Apprentice and tell me you think these people have a single redeeming principle. These people would happily sell you chocolate-robed cocaine as a 'diet aid' if they thought people would buy it in droves. If you compare diet drinks with non-diet drinks, hellyeah, there's more sugar in the non-diet - which is how they get away with this stuff. But now scientists ahve worked out that the artificial sweeteners actually make you hungrier, cos they give you an 'orosensory stimulus' that makes your body think "Ooh, yum! Lots of food on the way, hurrah!"
So drinking the diet versions actually encourage your brain and body to think it's hungrier than it really is, so you eat more...and more...and more...just cos you're not getting the calories you promised your body by sucking down a diet drink.
So - for all the years I spent sucking down Diet Coke by the bottlefull, thinking 'shit, this much be good for me, it's Diet, right?" I'm thinking of sueing Coca Cola for making me the fat bastard I am today. Hell, you read the Daily Mail, all you ever hear is that we're living in a country where the litigation culture's gone mad - time to get me a piece of that sweet Coca-Cola-covered action, I think...
Yes, of course I'm being facetious. If you didn't realise the drinks companies didn't give a crap about you and would lie, lie, lie to sell you more of their products, you don't deserve to live without a carer!
Blood was 4.7 this morning, as opposed to 5.7 yesterday. Need to jump on the bike right now between Xenical-bouts. Oh yeah, it's all fun, this weightloss lark...
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Get Thee Behind Me, Brussels
Yesterday, as you know, was a good day - at least when it started. A five pound loss in a week is mad, and actually against the ethos of this experiment (the slow and steady approach), but I figure weeks when I don't lose anything, or put on, are technically against the ethos of this experiment too, so an occasional bump in the ratings, I'm gonna let slide if that's OK with you guys? Good, thought so, moving on...
So I went to St Pancras to check in for the Eurostar to Brussels.
"You're too early," said the cheerful soul in the perspex box. "Come back in half an hour."
I came back in half an hour, after paying through the nose for two measly pieces of bread and some ruined scrambled eggs (don't get me on over-garnishing - I have a mini-vendetta against parsley and those who throw it onto every damn thing!). Although there, I did notice something that's been happening almost sneakily, more and more often to me. I left about half of it - in fact, everything that didn't fit on a piece of bread. Yes, to some extent, I left some of it because it was nasty and spoiled, and if I'm honest, I probably left a little more of it because of the snotty, practically Parisian attitude of the staff - cos, yeah, that'll show 'em! - but all in all, I think it was the creeping evil worm of Kate Moss that has started making me do it. You remember that nasty, insidious, probably depressingly true but mean-spirited line about 'nothing tasting as good as skinny feels'? Hate the line, personally, but have started to leave food on my plate because somewhere in the back of my brain, something that works like a virus or a worm is doing the maths in my subconscious brain, and even though this was never supposed to be a strictly calorie-Gestapo experiment, it's there in the background, translating food into calories, and calories into biking - or more hoenstly, calories into fat that needs to be biked into non-existence every single day...
Ahem. Where the Hell was I? Oh yeah, St Pancras. Anyhow, had my half-a-miserable-breakfast, went back, smiled at the perspex lady and she let me leave the country. When I got to Brussels a couple of hours later, I met my fellow journos and we were herded to our first appointment...
Did I mention it was Brussels?
Our first appointment was at the Haagen Dazs cafe, with a free tab. "Please eat whatever you want, my pliable English journalist friends, then write nice things about us" was the pitch. So I sat there, eating nothing, drinking nothing, wanting to stuff cones up people's noses and choke them on their waffles, and generally grinding my teeth to a pulp. They took us to the launch, and we sat, and we asked questions, and they didn't answer us, so we asked them again, and they still didn't answer us and we got huffy and determined to maybe not write such nice things about them after all. I'd actually teamed up with an old pal - and indeed an old boss - of mine, Andrew, and we spent a good few mintues when the launch was over...pretty much asking each other the questions that our hosts wouldn't answer, and pretty much agreeing that they hadn't answered them. We went to the after-launch reception, and I looked at glasses of champagne, and the translator in my head remembered Croatia, and how deceptively calorie-heavy wine can be, and made me pick up glass after glass of water. There were canapes, but they turned out to be balls of cheese with a sliver of ham on, or slices of cucumber, or some weird presumably salmon-pink goo cut into squares and stuck on a cocktail stick.
"Sod it," I thought, "I'll pick something up at the station."
Except at the station, it appeared that half of Brussels was determined to ge tthe Hell out of Brussels and the - oh yeah, did I mention - sweltering heat. I'd thought that by buggering off out of London, I'd be leaving the heat behind.
Non. Apparently, while we were sitting there being cheerfully blathered at, London had a couple of Hellacious but therapeutically cooling thunderstorms. Brussels - notsomuch. Damp, sweaty armpit-patches appeared to be part of the city's uniform yesterday. So anyway, everybody seemed to think it was a pretty fine idea to get the Hell out of Dodge, meaning the lines at immigration and customs were long and snakey. When we finally got through, Andrew and I, as one journo, headed to the only cafe there was behind the lines. Except of course, everybody who was damp and sweaty and weary of Brussels was also pretty damn peckish. So we got back into the line and shuffled forward again, past lines of empty shelves. There was a salad that appeared to have been sweating there since 1978. And there were apples. I thought about it, but to be honest, I wasn't sure I could be buggered to bring out my plastic to pay a Euro and a half for an apple.
Of course, this was Brussels, Belgium. There was one other option, food-wise.
There was a chocolate shop.
So I ended up back at the overpriced, snotty French cafe, ordering a bowl of soup and a coffee. Also picked up some fresh fruit and ate it on the way home at about 10.30 at night. All in all, I've had far worse days on this experiment, and the weigh-in news buoyed a day of the most eeeeevil and glorious temptations. The thing is, I'm no longer sure that sweet things are my biggest temptation. I have a feeling that my biggest temptation now is the mind-worm that is potentially going to drive me - and those around me - absolutely insane with streams of numbers and calculations and translations and the never-ending voice of calorific pedantry. The Dark Side is not so much calling again as whispering, quietly, behind all the scenes of my life.
Oh Christ, I'm being held mental hostage by Kate Moss.
Well, that's a cheerful end to the day...
So I went to St Pancras to check in for the Eurostar to Brussels.
"You're too early," said the cheerful soul in the perspex box. "Come back in half an hour."
I came back in half an hour, after paying through the nose for two measly pieces of bread and some ruined scrambled eggs (don't get me on over-garnishing - I have a mini-vendetta against parsley and those who throw it onto every damn thing!). Although there, I did notice something that's been happening almost sneakily, more and more often to me. I left about half of it - in fact, everything that didn't fit on a piece of bread. Yes, to some extent, I left some of it because it was nasty and spoiled, and if I'm honest, I probably left a little more of it because of the snotty, practically Parisian attitude of the staff - cos, yeah, that'll show 'em! - but all in all, I think it was the creeping evil worm of Kate Moss that has started making me do it. You remember that nasty, insidious, probably depressingly true but mean-spirited line about 'nothing tasting as good as skinny feels'? Hate the line, personally, but have started to leave food on my plate because somewhere in the back of my brain, something that works like a virus or a worm is doing the maths in my subconscious brain, and even though this was never supposed to be a strictly calorie-Gestapo experiment, it's there in the background, translating food into calories, and calories into biking - or more hoenstly, calories into fat that needs to be biked into non-existence every single day...
Ahem. Where the Hell was I? Oh yeah, St Pancras. Anyhow, had my half-a-miserable-breakfast, went back, smiled at the perspex lady and she let me leave the country. When I got to Brussels a couple of hours later, I met my fellow journos and we were herded to our first appointment...
Did I mention it was Brussels?
Our first appointment was at the Haagen Dazs cafe, with a free tab. "Please eat whatever you want, my pliable English journalist friends, then write nice things about us" was the pitch. So I sat there, eating nothing, drinking nothing, wanting to stuff cones up people's noses and choke them on their waffles, and generally grinding my teeth to a pulp. They took us to the launch, and we sat, and we asked questions, and they didn't answer us, so we asked them again, and they still didn't answer us and we got huffy and determined to maybe not write such nice things about them after all. I'd actually teamed up with an old pal - and indeed an old boss - of mine, Andrew, and we spent a good few mintues when the launch was over...pretty much asking each other the questions that our hosts wouldn't answer, and pretty much agreeing that they hadn't answered them. We went to the after-launch reception, and I looked at glasses of champagne, and the translator in my head remembered Croatia, and how deceptively calorie-heavy wine can be, and made me pick up glass after glass of water. There were canapes, but they turned out to be balls of cheese with a sliver of ham on, or slices of cucumber, or some weird presumably salmon-pink goo cut into squares and stuck on a cocktail stick.
"Sod it," I thought, "I'll pick something up at the station."
Except at the station, it appeared that half of Brussels was determined to ge tthe Hell out of Brussels and the - oh yeah, did I mention - sweltering heat. I'd thought that by buggering off out of London, I'd be leaving the heat behind.
Non. Apparently, while we were sitting there being cheerfully blathered at, London had a couple of Hellacious but therapeutically cooling thunderstorms. Brussels - notsomuch. Damp, sweaty armpit-patches appeared to be part of the city's uniform yesterday. So anyway, everybody seemed to think it was a pretty fine idea to get the Hell out of Dodge, meaning the lines at immigration and customs were long and snakey. When we finally got through, Andrew and I, as one journo, headed to the only cafe there was behind the lines. Except of course, everybody who was damp and sweaty and weary of Brussels was also pretty damn peckish. So we got back into the line and shuffled forward again, past lines of empty shelves. There was a salad that appeared to have been sweating there since 1978. And there were apples. I thought about it, but to be honest, I wasn't sure I could be buggered to bring out my plastic to pay a Euro and a half for an apple.
Of course, this was Brussels, Belgium. There was one other option, food-wise.
There was a chocolate shop.
So I ended up back at the overpriced, snotty French cafe, ordering a bowl of soup and a coffee. Also picked up some fresh fruit and ate it on the way home at about 10.30 at night. All in all, I've had far worse days on this experiment, and the weigh-in news buoyed a day of the most eeeeevil and glorious temptations. The thing is, I'm no longer sure that sweet things are my biggest temptation. I have a feeling that my biggest temptation now is the mind-worm that is potentially going to drive me - and those around me - absolutely insane with streams of numbers and calculations and translations and the never-ending voice of calorific pedantry. The Dark Side is not so much calling again as whispering, quietly, behind all the scenes of my life.
Oh Christ, I'm being held mental hostage by Kate Moss.
Well, that's a cheerful end to the day...
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
A Day Trip To Bethselamin
It was that genius Douglas Adams who first wrote about the fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin, 'which is now so worried about the cumulative erosion caused by a gazillion tourists a year that now, any net imbalance between the amount to eat and the amount you excrete is surgically removed from your bodyweight when you leave, meaning every time you go to the lavatory there, it is vitally important to get a receipt.'
Well as I sit here at St Pancras in a fantastically pretentious French cafe having overpriced and garnished-to-death scrambled eggs on bread (not toast - bread; seriously, a couple of minutes of heat would have killed ya?), I have to tell you that I've already been to Bethselamin and back this morning.
To explain - it being a weigh-in day, I got out of bed, and went and weighed immediately (prior to any morning bathroom action). It revealed the frankly stunning result of:
18 stone 9 pounds.
That's a phenomenal 5.25 pounds lost since last week (still pre-bathroom).
Then, as it happened, I felt the power move me, and sat down to my normal ablutions. I am now this sad - I then stripped off again, and weighed once more. 18 stone 10.5 pounds! Clearly I should have got a receipt after my first weigh-in.
This baffled me all the way to King's Cross, but I was preparing to be all grown-up and mature about it. After all, I don't need to lose five pounds in a week, 4 will more than suffice, yadda yadda yadda. It was only as I pulled into King's Cross that I remembered one thing. Between the first weigh-in and the second, I'd chugged two-thirds of a 1.5 litre bottle of water. Now, I know what you're thinking - Water? Pah! But water has its own weight (just ask Archimedes!), and last night, after drinking an awful lot of water, my weight had gone up to 18 stone 13.75, which was interesting to go to bed with. But overnight, clearly the water had been absorbed and excreted, and given me a true reading.
So ya know what? Balls to being mature about it, I'm taking the original, pre-water reading as accurate. So our golden number today is officially:
18 stone 9 pounds (or 261 pounds) - just a pound and a half away from my two-stone marker. Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have to get fleeced by a waitress and bugger off to Brussels!
Well as I sit here at St Pancras in a fantastically pretentious French cafe having overpriced and garnished-to-death scrambled eggs on bread (not toast - bread; seriously, a couple of minutes of heat would have killed ya?), I have to tell you that I've already been to Bethselamin and back this morning.
To explain - it being a weigh-in day, I got out of bed, and went and weighed immediately (prior to any morning bathroom action). It revealed the frankly stunning result of:
18 stone 9 pounds.
That's a phenomenal 5.25 pounds lost since last week (still pre-bathroom).
Then, as it happened, I felt the power move me, and sat down to my normal ablutions. I am now this sad - I then stripped off again, and weighed once more. 18 stone 10.5 pounds! Clearly I should have got a receipt after my first weigh-in.
This baffled me all the way to King's Cross, but I was preparing to be all grown-up and mature about it. After all, I don't need to lose five pounds in a week, 4 will more than suffice, yadda yadda yadda. It was only as I pulled into King's Cross that I remembered one thing. Between the first weigh-in and the second, I'd chugged two-thirds of a 1.5 litre bottle of water. Now, I know what you're thinking - Water? Pah! But water has its own weight (just ask Archimedes!), and last night, after drinking an awful lot of water, my weight had gone up to 18 stone 13.75, which was interesting to go to bed with. But overnight, clearly the water had been absorbed and excreted, and given me a true reading.
So ya know what? Balls to being mature about it, I'm taking the original, pre-water reading as accurate. So our golden number today is officially:
18 stone 9 pounds (or 261 pounds) - just a pound and a half away from my two-stone marker. Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have to get fleeced by a waitress and bugger off to Brussels!
Monday, 27 June 2011
Too Hot To Eat
Yes, I know this is Britain, and such a headline sounds insane...but anyone who's here right now knows what I'm talking about. Summer used to be a nice gentle diet of disappointment and drizzle. You knew where you were with it. It was one of the things you could count on - queueing, pompousness, emotional repression, crap food, bankers in bowler hats, big red buses, the BBC and drizzle all through the Summer. That was what Britain was all about.
Yesterday, somebody apparently dropped Miami on us. One day of which - a Sunday of which - was all very well and lovely. The second day - a Monday stuck in offices, buses, tubes, and not to put too fine a point on it, clothes - is not fun. The idea of hot food sickens, the idea of doing a goddamn thing makes one cranky, one loathes the rest of the human race (even assuming that one didn't loathe them beforehand, which of course I generally tend to do). Tube rails and tarmac expand and slow down traffic, meaning you spend even longer with your face in a bunch of seriously sweaty pits. All in all, suddenly becoming Miami is not conducive to the British reputation for affability. So Miami can pretty much bog off back where it came from, frankly.
Or alternatively, I myself can bog off. Tomorrow's entry might be trickily timed, as I'm off to Brussels for the day. If I tell you I have no real idea why, you'll...well, if you've been with me a while, you'll know I'm telling you the truth. Some bunch of Belgians are launching...a thing. I don't know what it is, to be honest. All I know is that they offered to pay my Eurostar tickets there and back, and I've never been to Brussels, so I'm having some of that. Thing is, it means being out of the house about normal time, jumping on a train around 10ish, and then presumably not having internet access until I get back home - which might not be until midnight or thereabouts. So - if you don't hear from me tomorrow, don't panic - I haven't died of heatsroke, or thrown myself in a hole after a dreadful weigh-in result, I'm schlepping about in Western Europe doing something I don't understand. Pretty much par for the course, really.
Blood this morning was 5.2, so - abbbsolutely nothing newsworthy there. Here's to escaping the heat tomorrow.
Yesterday, somebody apparently dropped Miami on us. One day of which - a Sunday of which - was all very well and lovely. The second day - a Monday stuck in offices, buses, tubes, and not to put too fine a point on it, clothes - is not fun. The idea of hot food sickens, the idea of doing a goddamn thing makes one cranky, one loathes the rest of the human race (even assuming that one didn't loathe them beforehand, which of course I generally tend to do). Tube rails and tarmac expand and slow down traffic, meaning you spend even longer with your face in a bunch of seriously sweaty pits. All in all, suddenly becoming Miami is not conducive to the British reputation for affability. So Miami can pretty much bog off back where it came from, frankly.
Or alternatively, I myself can bog off. Tomorrow's entry might be trickily timed, as I'm off to Brussels for the day. If I tell you I have no real idea why, you'll...well, if you've been with me a while, you'll know I'm telling you the truth. Some bunch of Belgians are launching...a thing. I don't know what it is, to be honest. All I know is that they offered to pay my Eurostar tickets there and back, and I've never been to Brussels, so I'm having some of that. Thing is, it means being out of the house about normal time, jumping on a train around 10ish, and then presumably not having internet access until I get back home - which might not be until midnight or thereabouts. So - if you don't hear from me tomorrow, don't panic - I haven't died of heatsroke, or thrown myself in a hole after a dreadful weigh-in result, I'm schlepping about in Western Europe doing something I don't understand. Pretty much par for the course, really.
Blood this morning was 5.2, so - abbbsolutely nothing newsworthy there. Here's to escaping the heat tomorrow.
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Only Sixteen
The group of nutters who published my Ambrose Bierce piece, who go by the collective name "We're Not Funny", posed a question yesterday that's been on my mind ever since. Well, not so much a question as an opportunity.
Dear 16-year-old me...it said.
I gave a few random answers, but it strikes me, on balance, that the one thing I'd really tell the 16-year-old me would be to lose the weight and keep it off.
Like a whole lot of people who've long since stopped crying about it, I was bullied as a kid and a teenager. There were a handful of reasons - in the Valleys of 70s and 80s South Wales, kids thought I was a) Posh, b) English and c) Gay - pretty much all because I had a vocabulary and appeared to have picked my accent up more from watching the barristers on Crown Court than from anywhere local. Plus of course I was always a smartarse, and I was The Fat Kid.
Given that I was a) Poor, b) Welsh and c) Errrm...just Welsh, there wasn't a whole hellofalot I could do about their preconceptions of my accent, and clearly, I was always gonna be a smartarse. But the whole Fat Kid thing - well, clearly that I brought on myself. I'm not about to indulge in revisionist history, and tell you that it sucked to be The Fat Kid, cos all in all, it really didn't, and the things that really screwed me up had nothing to do with it...
Well....not much, anyway.
But the weird thing is, I did this sort of experiment when I was about sixteen. I was, as memory serves, about fifteen stone and probably not yet my ultimate 5ft 6. I fancied the brains out of one particular girl who was different and brilliant and altogether shiny-souled. And what was infinitely more, she seemed to understand the way my mind worked. So, for the possibility of turning her first into a friend, and then posibly more, I lost something like five stone (75 pounds, or 34 Kg), to try and turn myself into something other than the Fat Kid. Clearly in purely clinical terms, it worked - I lost the weight. But the objective never panned out, and in something like disappointment, over time, I stopped caring so much and grew bigger again...and then bigger and bigger.
I don't know what my life would have turned out to be like if I'd kept the weight off back then. Probably very little would have been different - as I say, the things that actually screwed me up had already happened by then, and were only tangentially weight-related. But one thing I know - if I'd kept the weight off as a sixteen year old, I'd probably never have become a diabetic, never developed the health problems I've got now.
Strikes me that'd be something worth knowing and taking seriously as a sixteen year old.
On the other hand, knowing me, what I'd probably really tell myself is that one day, Doctor Who would be cool, and to keep working on those stories of mine.
Didn't do that either, but it would have been easier advice to follow...
Dear 16-year-old me...it said.
I gave a few random answers, but it strikes me, on balance, that the one thing I'd really tell the 16-year-old me would be to lose the weight and keep it off.
Like a whole lot of people who've long since stopped crying about it, I was bullied as a kid and a teenager. There were a handful of reasons - in the Valleys of 70s and 80s South Wales, kids thought I was a) Posh, b) English and c) Gay - pretty much all because I had a vocabulary and appeared to have picked my accent up more from watching the barristers on Crown Court than from anywhere local. Plus of course I was always a smartarse, and I was The Fat Kid.
Given that I was a) Poor, b) Welsh and c) Errrm...just Welsh, there wasn't a whole hellofalot I could do about their preconceptions of my accent, and clearly, I was always gonna be a smartarse. But the whole Fat Kid thing - well, clearly that I brought on myself. I'm not about to indulge in revisionist history, and tell you that it sucked to be The Fat Kid, cos all in all, it really didn't, and the things that really screwed me up had nothing to do with it...
Well....not much, anyway.
But the weird thing is, I did this sort of experiment when I was about sixteen. I was, as memory serves, about fifteen stone and probably not yet my ultimate 5ft 6. I fancied the brains out of one particular girl who was different and brilliant and altogether shiny-souled. And what was infinitely more, she seemed to understand the way my mind worked. So, for the possibility of turning her first into a friend, and then posibly more, I lost something like five stone (75 pounds, or 34 Kg), to try and turn myself into something other than the Fat Kid. Clearly in purely clinical terms, it worked - I lost the weight. But the objective never panned out, and in something like disappointment, over time, I stopped caring so much and grew bigger again...and then bigger and bigger.
I don't know what my life would have turned out to be like if I'd kept the weight off back then. Probably very little would have been different - as I say, the things that actually screwed me up had already happened by then, and were only tangentially weight-related. But one thing I know - if I'd kept the weight off as a sixteen year old, I'd probably never have become a diabetic, never developed the health problems I've got now.
Strikes me that'd be something worth knowing and taking seriously as a sixteen year old.
On the other hand, knowing me, what I'd probably really tell myself is that one day, Doctor Who would be cool, and to keep working on those stories of mine.
Didn't do that either, but it would have been easier advice to follow...
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Screw You, Hercules!
I'm halfway through reading The Iliad at the moment, so my brain is buzzing with Greek heroes and their inevitable, ineffable, unbloodyending quests - killing monsters and finding fleeces and piddling about in minotaur-mazes and the like. But I have to tell you, after last night, I reckon they were all a big bunch of wooly-willed wusses.
I mean, yeah, Hercules might have killed the Nemean Lion, he might have tamed the three-headed Hellhound Cerberus, he might even have mucked out the Augean stables, but let me ask you this - did he ever cycle twelve miles without actually getting anywhere in a foolhardy quest to see his feet? No, I don't think he did.
Did he cycle twelve miles on a day when all he wanted to to was dive into an enormous vat of chantilly cream with his mouth open? Nnnnnnnnnope, don't think so.
Did he cycle twelve miles on a day when all he wanted to do was dive into an enormous vat of chantilly cream with his mouth open while watching Man Vs Food on the TV? Hardly think so, the lily-livered wuss-ass.
Annnnnd just in case you're not getting the full picture here, did Mr Big-Muscles Lion-Killer Cerberus-tamer Hercules ever cycle twelve miles on a day when all he wanted to do was dive into an enormous vat of chantilly cream with his mouth open while watching Man Vs Food on the TV and while his darling wife wafted through with a giant bowl of chocolate brownies in deep, thick, glorious steamy chocolate sauce? Hellno, he was too busy poncing about the place going ooh look at me, I'm a big macho hero-guy.
So until Hercules can do what I did last night, he can kiss my flabby white ass, frankly.
Of course, technically, once I'd finished the biking, I had a tiny fluttering of the damned sinus tachycardia, but hey, no-one ever said being a hero was easy!
Today has been mainly about biking, tidying up, and proofreading. And to some extent about Ambrose Bierce, for reasons that only make sense if you go here. Essentially, I'm just trying to maintain the good results of my surreptitious midweek weigh-ins till Tuesday, while getting on with alllll the other stuff that I have to do these days. Fun fun fun - hoping to stay up late tonight to do some actual writing. But shortly...yep, you guessed it, I'm getting back on the bike.
Or The Bi-Wheeled Chariot of Jupiter, if you prefer.
I mean, yeah, Hercules might have killed the Nemean Lion, he might have tamed the three-headed Hellhound Cerberus, he might even have mucked out the Augean stables, but let me ask you this - did he ever cycle twelve miles without actually getting anywhere in a foolhardy quest to see his feet? No, I don't think he did.
Did he cycle twelve miles on a day when all he wanted to to was dive into an enormous vat of chantilly cream with his mouth open? Nnnnnnnnnope, don't think so.
Did he cycle twelve miles on a day when all he wanted to do was dive into an enormous vat of chantilly cream with his mouth open while watching Man Vs Food on the TV? Hardly think so, the lily-livered wuss-ass.
Annnnnd just in case you're not getting the full picture here, did Mr Big-Muscles Lion-Killer Cerberus-tamer Hercules ever cycle twelve miles on a day when all he wanted to do was dive into an enormous vat of chantilly cream with his mouth open while watching Man Vs Food on the TV and while his darling wife wafted through with a giant bowl of chocolate brownies in deep, thick, glorious steamy chocolate sauce? Hellno, he was too busy poncing about the place going ooh look at me, I'm a big macho hero-guy.
So until Hercules can do what I did last night, he can kiss my flabby white ass, frankly.
Of course, technically, once I'd finished the biking, I had a tiny fluttering of the damned sinus tachycardia, but hey, no-one ever said being a hero was easy!
Today has been mainly about biking, tidying up, and proofreading. And to some extent about Ambrose Bierce, for reasons that only make sense if you go here. Essentially, I'm just trying to maintain the good results of my surreptitious midweek weigh-ins till Tuesday, while getting on with alllll the other stuff that I have to do these days. Fun fun fun - hoping to stay up late tonight to do some actual writing. But shortly...yep, you guessed it, I'm getting back on the bike.
Or The Bi-Wheeled Chariot of Jupiter, if you prefer.
Friday, 24 June 2011
Miracle Cures And The Slow Path
I woke up this morning, and decided to go for a sneaky mid-week weigh. That was rather pleasing, all in all, but of course, being a mid-week weigh, it absolutely doesn't count, so there's no particular reason you'd want to know what it said, right?
Well, tough, I'm not gonna tell you in case it all goes horribly to pot over the weekend and I end up not acheiving this morning's result come Tuesday. So, and I'm sorry if this is getting old, but nehh!
Anyhow, inspired by a positive mid-week weighing experience, I determined, Richard III style, to invest in my own success - did the walking, got water, no coffee. Clearly, given Marks & Spencer's porridge vendetta, an alternative had to be found, and I stepped back on the fruit train - felt wonderful and fresh and soooooo ridiculously virtuous you wouldn't believe.
Then I saw a story in the paper that chimed with me. Apparently, doctors have known for a while that Type-2 Diabetes (my type) can be cured by simply eating just 600 calories a day.
Ahem...
This miracle cure is all very well, but of course the miracle is actually doing it. My doc told me that I need a thousand calories a day just to maintain organ function, which presumably means if I only ate 600, my body would be pretty much eating itself. Certainly, you'd lose weight doing that. Unfortunately, as I think we know by now, weight and sanity would pretty much go hand in hand, and other people would probably lose a good few pounds too, when I decapitated them randomly on the Tube.
Nono, no 600-calorie shenanigans for me. At least, not at this stage. Sorry to drag the guy back into this (truly, sometimes, my wife thinks I have a right old man-crush on Mitch Benn. I really truly don't, there are just a serious handful of parallels between us. OK, so he knows Neil Gaiman and Steven Moffatt, and I really don't, but, y'know, other than that...), but it really does remind me of what Mitch has been doing recently. I checked out his method, because apparently, he's actually lost more than nine stone since January, which of course those who've been with me from the start know is pretty much what I have to lose to get down to my healthy weight. As you can doubtless understand, I was curious about anything that offered that kind of result. It's a program called LighterLife, which not only costs about £75 per week, but also involves eating and drinking nothing of any actual food value whatsoever - the money is for therapy and 'food replacement packs'. We all know how insane I am just doing it this sloggy, bit by bit way. Can you imagine what I'd be like with just a bunch of food replacement packs? I mean, seriously?? The reason today's miracle cure and the LighterLife way remind me of one another of course is they work on the same basic principle - gently-tuned starving to death. Who knows? I said I'd try anything, and maybe, nearer the end, I'll give this kind of thing a go. But for now, I'm happy enough in my groove of slow (Wow, but soooo slow) plodding and the doctor-approved 'two pounds a week' schlepp.
Sigh...
No, really, I am.
To the bike, Batman...
Well, tough, I'm not gonna tell you in case it all goes horribly to pot over the weekend and I end up not acheiving this morning's result come Tuesday. So, and I'm sorry if this is getting old, but nehh!
Anyhow, inspired by a positive mid-week weighing experience, I determined, Richard III style, to invest in my own success - did the walking, got water, no coffee. Clearly, given Marks & Spencer's porridge vendetta, an alternative had to be found, and I stepped back on the fruit train - felt wonderful and fresh and soooooo ridiculously virtuous you wouldn't believe.
Then I saw a story in the paper that chimed with me. Apparently, doctors have known for a while that Type-2 Diabetes (my type) can be cured by simply eating just 600 calories a day.
Ahem...
This miracle cure is all very well, but of course the miracle is actually doing it. My doc told me that I need a thousand calories a day just to maintain organ function, which presumably means if I only ate 600, my body would be pretty much eating itself. Certainly, you'd lose weight doing that. Unfortunately, as I think we know by now, weight and sanity would pretty much go hand in hand, and other people would probably lose a good few pounds too, when I decapitated them randomly on the Tube.
Nono, no 600-calorie shenanigans for me. At least, not at this stage. Sorry to drag the guy back into this (truly, sometimes, my wife thinks I have a right old man-crush on Mitch Benn. I really truly don't, there are just a serious handful of parallels between us. OK, so he knows Neil Gaiman and Steven Moffatt, and I really don't, but, y'know, other than that...), but it really does remind me of what Mitch has been doing recently. I checked out his method, because apparently, he's actually lost more than nine stone since January, which of course those who've been with me from the start know is pretty much what I have to lose to get down to my healthy weight. As you can doubtless understand, I was curious about anything that offered that kind of result. It's a program called LighterLife, which not only costs about £75 per week, but also involves eating and drinking nothing of any actual food value whatsoever - the money is for therapy and 'food replacement packs'. We all know how insane I am just doing it this sloggy, bit by bit way. Can you imagine what I'd be like with just a bunch of food replacement packs? I mean, seriously?? The reason today's miracle cure and the LighterLife way remind me of one another of course is they work on the same basic principle - gently-tuned starving to death. Who knows? I said I'd try anything, and maybe, nearer the end, I'll give this kind of thing a go. But for now, I'm happy enough in my groove of slow (Wow, but soooo slow) plodding and the doctor-approved 'two pounds a week' schlepp.
Sigh...
No, really, I am.
To the bike, Batman...
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Backstory
My blood was 4.4 this morning - lower than normal, but hardly dangerous...
[A tumbleweed comes blowing through the scene. It pauses for a minute in my life today. Gets bored. Rolls off again.]
That's about all that could even loosely be termed to be interesting about my day. To be honest, as my deadline in work gets critical, everything else becomes little more than backstory. So while I'd love to tell you all about the hilarious antics I've been involved in today, I've been too busy to even recognise an antic if it wandered up and gave me a big wet kiss.
Of course, there's the fact that while Starbucks is no longer trying trying to kill me, Marks & Spencers has taken to being just plain mean. I used, occasionally, when I wasn't chowing down on fistfuls of McDonalds hash browns like they were going out of fashion (I'm reliably informed that they aren't), to stop off at Marks of a morning, for a glorious little pot of porridge. However, recently - in fact, now I think of it, ever since I've started this experiment and could really do with a slow-release carb for breakfast, rather than the kind of alternatives available (sandwiches, British breakfasts, Cornish pasties etc), every time I've gone, and lined up and shuffled along in the Communist-style early-morning Porridge-line - no porridge has there been. Nope, sorry mate, no porridge, no can do, eh what, you want what-now? Honestly, you'd swear I'd asked for Blue Whale burgers doused in babies' tears. So a big hearty fuck you, and the porridge pot you taunt me with, to Marks & Spencers. May your underwear always be shabby, and your panninis always be burnt.
Of course, I know what you're thinking - why not just pop into McDonalds - after all, they do porridge...
Well, yes, they do, but if I'm honest, when I'm on my own of a morning, I still don't trust myself to walk into a McDonalds. One day at a time and all that, but honestly, why would I take the risk, when Marks & Spencers bloody well do porridge. They do! I swear they do - it's on their menu in big black letters. They do porridge.
They just don't want to give any of the precious paste-like goop to me, that's all.
Bastards.
Other than that, busyness, a lunch that was basically soup, and a chinese dinner are probably not the most exciting elements from which blogs of golden mirth are made. On the other hand, I am about to get back on the bike for the first time since Tuesday's weigh-in, so there's bound to be plenty of pain, calamity and naughty words. Come back to me tomorrow, there'll be antics aplenty...Probably.
[A tumbleweed comes blowing through the scene. It pauses for a minute in my life today. Gets bored. Rolls off again.]
That's about all that could even loosely be termed to be interesting about my day. To be honest, as my deadline in work gets critical, everything else becomes little more than backstory. So while I'd love to tell you all about the hilarious antics I've been involved in today, I've been too busy to even recognise an antic if it wandered up and gave me a big wet kiss.
Of course, there's the fact that while Starbucks is no longer trying trying to kill me, Marks & Spencers has taken to being just plain mean. I used, occasionally, when I wasn't chowing down on fistfuls of McDonalds hash browns like they were going out of fashion (I'm reliably informed that they aren't), to stop off at Marks of a morning, for a glorious little pot of porridge. However, recently - in fact, now I think of it, ever since I've started this experiment and could really do with a slow-release carb for breakfast, rather than the kind of alternatives available (sandwiches, British breakfasts, Cornish pasties etc), every time I've gone, and lined up and shuffled along in the Communist-style early-morning Porridge-line - no porridge has there been. Nope, sorry mate, no porridge, no can do, eh what, you want what-now? Honestly, you'd swear I'd asked for Blue Whale burgers doused in babies' tears. So a big hearty fuck you, and the porridge pot you taunt me with, to Marks & Spencers. May your underwear always be shabby, and your panninis always be burnt.
Of course, I know what you're thinking - why not just pop into McDonalds - after all, they do porridge...
Well, yes, they do, but if I'm honest, when I'm on my own of a morning, I still don't trust myself to walk into a McDonalds. One day at a time and all that, but honestly, why would I take the risk, when Marks & Spencers bloody well do porridge. They do! I swear they do - it's on their menu in big black letters. They do porridge.
They just don't want to give any of the precious paste-like goop to me, that's all.
Bastards.
Other than that, busyness, a lunch that was basically soup, and a chinese dinner are probably not the most exciting elements from which blogs of golden mirth are made. On the other hand, I am about to get back on the bike for the first time since Tuesday's weigh-in, so there's bound to be plenty of pain, calamity and naughty words. Come back to me tomorrow, there'll be antics aplenty...Probably.
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
The Joy of The Rose
You'll know I've been in a heck of a funk these last few days. Over that now. Two things helped. Firstly, had a talk with d, and came to properly appreciate we've had a Hell of a time since October - my heart wobbles, increasingly difficult financial situations (is it me, or is it a sonofabitch trying to make ends meet these days?), d's mom in February, d's mom a moth or so ago, and her subsequent passing away, now my folks and the health shadows on my dad and the carnage that's happening in their house...
Kinda worked out it was OK to feel a bit oppressed. And as soon as we agreed that much, it was like the funk lifted.
Hell and damnation helped too, I have to admit.
A couple of days ago, I got an email from the Rose. The Rose Theatre, that is - the one from Shakespeare In Love. The first theatre on London's Bankside - pre-cursor of the Globe. The place where Christopher Marlowe - forerunner and possible friend of Shakespeare, and absolutely kick-ass playwright in his own right - first saw his plays performed. We're doing Doctor Faustus at the minute, they said. Wanna come along?
That would be - in this case literally - a Hellyeah!
d wasn't keen (after all, Hell and damnation's not really her thing), so I went on my own after work. It was, quite frankly a bitch to find - It's on the street where the New Globe was built, and the Globe so outranks it these days in 'cultural icon' status, they don't even put the Rose on the map. Also, Blackfriars station has been closed for a good while, and the Thames Path that gets you there easily is under redevelopment. But walking through the doors of the Rose is magical. Old, and creaky and magical. They've got a display of artefacts they've unearthed during the excavation (the Rose, like most buildings from the 1500s, is substantially below modern street level, and they're excavating and redeveloping it bit by tortuously slow bit. To walk through a curtain into a space actually much higher than the original stage, and feel yourself in the space, makes your nerves tingle. The performance space at the moment is very small - like a reasonably-sized living room with three rows of chairs. But it gives it the sense of being a wonderful throwback to the days of strolling players setting up in a great hall - you're right there in the action. And to hear Marlowe's famous tale of a man who craved knowledge, and power, and all the world of wonders in exchange for his soul, performed extremely well by just a handful of players, in the theatre that first saw it performed over five hundred years ago, was a privilege that will stand in my memories alongside walking among the ruins of the Forum in Rome, and my first sight of the Pacific Ocean, as precious and perfect and exquisite and complete unto itself.
As it happened, d was having a crappy night - we had a power cut at home while I was revelling in Marlowe. I stopped off on the way home to get batteries for our torch, came through the door, went to pee...and the lights came back on. d says she's never letting me go out on my own again. I'm hoping she's joking - I have tickets for the Globe version of Faustus just a couple of days before our wedding anniversary this year...
So here's a note of thanks to d, and a salute to Marlowe, and to the army of people who are trying to rebuild the Rose. You gave me back the rest of my sense of self tonight.
In case you're wondering, bloods for the last three days have been 5.6, 5.8 and 6.2. Just in case you thought I'd stopped checking...Just haven't been myself these last few days, clearly.
Kinda worked out it was OK to feel a bit oppressed. And as soon as we agreed that much, it was like the funk lifted.
Hell and damnation helped too, I have to admit.
A couple of days ago, I got an email from the Rose. The Rose Theatre, that is - the one from Shakespeare In Love. The first theatre on London's Bankside - pre-cursor of the Globe. The place where Christopher Marlowe - forerunner and possible friend of Shakespeare, and absolutely kick-ass playwright in his own right - first saw his plays performed. We're doing Doctor Faustus at the minute, they said. Wanna come along?
That would be - in this case literally - a Hellyeah!
d wasn't keen (after all, Hell and damnation's not really her thing), so I went on my own after work. It was, quite frankly a bitch to find - It's on the street where the New Globe was built, and the Globe so outranks it these days in 'cultural icon' status, they don't even put the Rose on the map. Also, Blackfriars station has been closed for a good while, and the Thames Path that gets you there easily is under redevelopment. But walking through the doors of the Rose is magical. Old, and creaky and magical. They've got a display of artefacts they've unearthed during the excavation (the Rose, like most buildings from the 1500s, is substantially below modern street level, and they're excavating and redeveloping it bit by tortuously slow bit. To walk through a curtain into a space actually much higher than the original stage, and feel yourself in the space, makes your nerves tingle. The performance space at the moment is very small - like a reasonably-sized living room with three rows of chairs. But it gives it the sense of being a wonderful throwback to the days of strolling players setting up in a great hall - you're right there in the action. And to hear Marlowe's famous tale of a man who craved knowledge, and power, and all the world of wonders in exchange for his soul, performed extremely well by just a handful of players, in the theatre that first saw it performed over five hundred years ago, was a privilege that will stand in my memories alongside walking among the ruins of the Forum in Rome, and my first sight of the Pacific Ocean, as precious and perfect and exquisite and complete unto itself.
As it happened, d was having a crappy night - we had a power cut at home while I was revelling in Marlowe. I stopped off on the way home to get batteries for our torch, came through the door, went to pee...and the lights came back on. d says she's never letting me go out on my own again. I'm hoping she's joking - I have tickets for the Globe version of Faustus just a couple of days before our wedding anniversary this year...
So here's a note of thanks to d, and a salute to Marlowe, and to the army of people who are trying to rebuild the Rose. You gave me back the rest of my sense of self tonight.
In case you're wondering, bloods for the last three days have been 5.6, 5.8 and 6.2. Just in case you thought I'd stopped checking...Just haven't been myself these last few days, clearly.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Not Sweating The Small Stuff
Right - well, firstly, let's hear it for the 'heavy socks' theory. Weigh-in this morning gave us this headline news:
That's 266.25 pounds for the Americans and 121 kg for the metricians among us. The real headline of which is I'm up a measly stinking lousy half-pound on last week. Normally, that would be nothing worth reporting, but this particular half pound, for the Brits at least, is significant because as you'll see, it changes our 'stone' number...which had such a positive motivating effect last week.
Sigh.
Annnyyhow, on the upside, it means I still get to just about hold the 'stone and a half lost line from last week, and to be honest, I'm really not gonna sweat this small a thing right now. Life has gotten rather hectic of late - it's deadline week in work, plus I'm trying to get back to doing some creative writing, and besides, there's worrying about my folks to be done as well - they had the builders arrive the day after we left them. Their living room now looks like an earthquake has hit it - the floor has been ripped up, bits of the wall have fallen off, a water pipe has burst, and, it turns out, the wall they had hacked off some 25 years ago was improperly disposed of by the builders back in the day - in fact, they just dumped the plaster and rubble into the big hole under the living room floor, where it's been happily moulding pretty much ever since.
Did I mention we're also still waiting for my dad's cat scan results for his breathing issues? Yyyyeah. Mouldy plaster - yummy!
So all in all, to borrow a phrase from the vernacular (hey, it's a lending language, I gather), half a pound can kiss my ass and get the hell in line when it comes to things to worry about right now. For the first time in a while, I have a week with a standard, not whizzing about the place, weekend at the end of it, meaning I get the chance to at least do some proper biking on the weekend...
Sigh...which is just as well because what with deadlines and meetings and whatnot (oh my!), I'm not going to have a chance to do any, either tonight or tomorrow night. To borrow again, though this time from Scarlett O'Hara, I'll think about that tomorrow. Except I probably won't have time. Thursday. Yes, I'll think about that Thursday.
Oh one other little upside to the day. A little while ago, I was contacted by someone who had read this blog and really rather liked it. She was part of a comedy collective in the States and they have a website. Would I like to join and submit stuff, she said. Sure, said I, though I haven't for far too long (see earlier note about the current pace of my life). Anyhow, submitted my first piece to them recently, and went into work today to a message that my debut piece had become the 'most read piece on day of posting' in the history of the site or somesuch. Yeah, beeeatches, it's all about me!
If you want to read more of my stuff that doesn't revolve around calorific fixation, you'll be able to find it from time to time at http://werenotfunny.wordpress.com/ - and my first posting, dating back to the trip back from the States, is here.
19 stone 0.25.
That's 266.25 pounds for the Americans and 121 kg for the metricians among us. The real headline of which is I'm up a measly stinking lousy half-pound on last week. Normally, that would be nothing worth reporting, but this particular half pound, for the Brits at least, is significant because as you'll see, it changes our 'stone' number...which had such a positive motivating effect last week.
Sigh.
Annnyyhow, on the upside, it means I still get to just about hold the 'stone and a half lost line from last week, and to be honest, I'm really not gonna sweat this small a thing right now. Life has gotten rather hectic of late - it's deadline week in work, plus I'm trying to get back to doing some creative writing, and besides, there's worrying about my folks to be done as well - they had the builders arrive the day after we left them. Their living room now looks like an earthquake has hit it - the floor has been ripped up, bits of the wall have fallen off, a water pipe has burst, and, it turns out, the wall they had hacked off some 25 years ago was improperly disposed of by the builders back in the day - in fact, they just dumped the plaster and rubble into the big hole under the living room floor, where it's been happily moulding pretty much ever since.
Did I mention we're also still waiting for my dad's cat scan results for his breathing issues? Yyyyeah. Mouldy plaster - yummy!
So all in all, to borrow a phrase from the vernacular (hey, it's a lending language, I gather), half a pound can kiss my ass and get the hell in line when it comes to things to worry about right now. For the first time in a while, I have a week with a standard, not whizzing about the place, weekend at the end of it, meaning I get the chance to at least do some proper biking on the weekend...
Sigh...which is just as well because what with deadlines and meetings and whatnot (oh my!), I'm not going to have a chance to do any, either tonight or tomorrow night. To borrow again, though this time from Scarlett O'Hara, I'll think about that tomorrow. Except I probably won't have time. Thursday. Yes, I'll think about that Thursday.
Oh one other little upside to the day. A little while ago, I was contacted by someone who had read this blog and really rather liked it. She was part of a comedy collective in the States and they have a website. Would I like to join and submit stuff, she said. Sure, said I, though I haven't for far too long (see earlier note about the current pace of my life). Anyhow, submitted my first piece to them recently, and went into work today to a message that my debut piece had become the 'most read piece on day of posting' in the history of the site or somesuch. Yeah, beeeatches, it's all about me!
If you want to read more of my stuff that doesn't revolve around calorific fixation, you'll be able to find it from time to time at http://werenotfunny.wordpress.com/ - and my first posting, dating back to the trip back from the States, is here.
Monday, 20 June 2011
Think I'll Go And Eat Worms...
Stomp, stomp, stomp.
"Not faaaaaaaaaairrrrr!!!"
Toys out of pram. Tapioca on the ceiling. Dog in hiding. Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp waaaaaaaaaghhhh!
Seriously, I'm having such a toddler-tantrum today, you don't wanna be around me. Hell, I don't wanna be around me.
Yesterday, I saw a pair of socks that, when shoved together, read out:
"Does my bum look big in these?"
I laughed at the time. But this morning, after a bad night's sleep and a morning Xenicaling, I slipped into a new pair of thick socks ready to face the grimness that is Monday. Then I thought again. If I'd had the joy of a Xenicaling, I figured I might as well get a Monday morning boost by stepping on the scales.
19 stone 2.
So there I was, bollock-naked except my socks, trying to make the mental case "Hmm...so....what? A pound per sock?"
Clearly, that's nonsense. The day went on in pretty much the same depressing tone - work would have been more enjoyable with a freely-bleeding head wound. Had sandwiches for breakfast, and a potato for lunch, so - not exactly saladicious. Followed that up with a self-pity pizza for dinner, pretty much spreading my wallowing misery to every corner of my life. Have felt, at several points today, like chucking it in and being normal again. Normality is an ache that pulls at me most days, but it's positively toddler-tantrum stupid to think like this, obviously - Yes, tomorrow, I'm going to have gone up, rather than down. I'm likely to have crossed back over the barrier of 19 stone. That's a complete and utter downer, but I've been wallowing and self-indulgent all day, and I think I should probably just go away and bike and sleep and face tomorrow's music, and then just get bloody on with it, because clearly this pathetic attitude is good for nobody.
Plenty of people love me,
Only a couple hate me,
But still I'm gonna eat worms...
Then I'm gonna get over myself, keep calm and carry the Hell on...
Honest.
"Not faaaaaaaaaairrrrr!!!"
Toys out of pram. Tapioca on the ceiling. Dog in hiding. Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp waaaaaaaaaghhhh!
Seriously, I'm having such a toddler-tantrum today, you don't wanna be around me. Hell, I don't wanna be around me.
Yesterday, I saw a pair of socks that, when shoved together, read out:
"Does my bum look big in these?"
I laughed at the time. But this morning, after a bad night's sleep and a morning Xenicaling, I slipped into a new pair of thick socks ready to face the grimness that is Monday. Then I thought again. If I'd had the joy of a Xenicaling, I figured I might as well get a Monday morning boost by stepping on the scales.
19 stone 2.
So there I was, bollock-naked except my socks, trying to make the mental case "Hmm...so....what? A pound per sock?"
Clearly, that's nonsense. The day went on in pretty much the same depressing tone - work would have been more enjoyable with a freely-bleeding head wound. Had sandwiches for breakfast, and a potato for lunch, so - not exactly saladicious. Followed that up with a self-pity pizza for dinner, pretty much spreading my wallowing misery to every corner of my life. Have felt, at several points today, like chucking it in and being normal again. Normality is an ache that pulls at me most days, but it's positively toddler-tantrum stupid to think like this, obviously - Yes, tomorrow, I'm going to have gone up, rather than down. I'm likely to have crossed back over the barrier of 19 stone. That's a complete and utter downer, but I've been wallowing and self-indulgent all day, and I think I should probably just go away and bike and sleep and face tomorrow's music, and then just get bloody on with it, because clearly this pathetic attitude is good for nobody.
Plenty of people love me,
Only a couple hate me,
But still I'm gonna eat worms...
Then I'm gonna get over myself, keep calm and carry the Hell on...
Honest.
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Father's Day
OK, before we begin, let's do a little maths.
If A=the juicy yumminess of prunes, and B=their well-known effect on the dietary fibre scale, assume that T=no freakin' common sense whatsoever. Then if T eats an entire bag of Prunes, P, with high A and B indices on the Prunosity scale, solve for the Fuckwititude of T...
Anyone?
Well, if you said MF, meaning the maximum allowable fuckwititude while still being able to wipe oneself, congratulations - gold stars to you all.
All of which is a long-winded way of explaining what I did to myself last night. I practically turned myself inside out like a balloon animal, further isolating myself from my folks and all other civilised society. The ridiculous upside of which is that this morning, on a different bathroom scales, I weighed in at 18 stone 12-13 (flashing between the two). This of course doesn't count in any way. Still, was a positive side to the gastric hell of last night.
Today, as you all already know, is Father's Day (at least it is here in the UK). My grumpy self has, as predicted, buggered off back to the depths of my soul, where I keep him lashed to a damp wall and regularly whipped. Today has been filled with a couple more bits of furniture-moving - including the dismantling of a Welsh dresser and a game of Tetris with sofas. It's also included a traditional Sunday dinner, which turned me positively lupine with carnivorous lust, and a little bit of Jeffrey Archer....which didn't.
Last night we were all sitting around at the end of the night, and since my mother's also dieting, d's a foodie who's recently lost a lot of weight, and my dad's also a diabetic, talk turned to diet and food. We gave my dad a couple of Rich Tea biscuits, and I had a craving that was insanely strong. Yep, I now sniff biscuit barrels too.
"D'you want one...erm...Weight Watchers biscuit?" my mother asked.
I explained that my brain didn't work like that, that I didn't want one of anything - that I wanted a whole sleeve of Rich Tea, with either a big mug of milk or a big mug of tea, dunking four at a time, so on the one end they were soggy and fit to drop, and on the other, still strong enough to support the four tiers, for a beautifully-structured slurp...Oh and Crunchies. Four Crunchie bars, fresh from the fridge so they have a beautiful, cold snap, that dissolves on your tongue into too-sweet honeycomb goodness...mmmm and oh god, ice cream, with biscuits and Crunchie bits, and syrup and fudge cake and......
My mother coughed.
"So...erm...that'd be a no then, would it?" she said, as I realised everyone was staring at me.
"Err..." I smiled, weakly. "Yes," I said.
"The thing about dieting," said my dad, "is that when you talk to a dietician, they ask you what you like, and what you don't like, and then they tell you you can't have what you do like, and that what you don't like, you've got to have..."
Yes, OK, there's a certain amount of Daily Mailness to the contracted sentiment there, but you've got to admit, there's a certain fatalistic accuracy to his appraisal. "The real secret," he continued, "is having what you want, when you want it...just not as much as you want."
Given the way my brain works - and indeed the way I've achieved the body I have, that needs the radical action I'm now taking - there's a part of me to which this logic simply does not compute. But there's another big part of me that wishes, above all, I could have taken the man's advice a couple of decades ago.
On the other hand, looking through his music collection this weekend, I realised my dad also has a double-disc collection of the Best of the Black And White Minstrel Show...
Sigh...
Happy Father's Day to everyone whose fathers are a combination of actual wisdom and opinions you want to go absolutely nowhere near. Gotta love 'em, don'tcha?
If A=the juicy yumminess of prunes, and B=their well-known effect on the dietary fibre scale, assume that T=no freakin' common sense whatsoever. Then if T eats an entire bag of Prunes, P, with high A and B indices on the Prunosity scale, solve for the Fuckwititude of T...
Anyone?
Well, if you said MF, meaning the maximum allowable fuckwititude while still being able to wipe oneself, congratulations - gold stars to you all.
All of which is a long-winded way of explaining what I did to myself last night. I practically turned myself inside out like a balloon animal, further isolating myself from my folks and all other civilised society. The ridiculous upside of which is that this morning, on a different bathroom scales, I weighed in at 18 stone 12-13 (flashing between the two). This of course doesn't count in any way. Still, was a positive side to the gastric hell of last night.
Today, as you all already know, is Father's Day (at least it is here in the UK). My grumpy self has, as predicted, buggered off back to the depths of my soul, where I keep him lashed to a damp wall and regularly whipped. Today has been filled with a couple more bits of furniture-moving - including the dismantling of a Welsh dresser and a game of Tetris with sofas. It's also included a traditional Sunday dinner, which turned me positively lupine with carnivorous lust, and a little bit of Jeffrey Archer....which didn't.
Last night we were all sitting around at the end of the night, and since my mother's also dieting, d's a foodie who's recently lost a lot of weight, and my dad's also a diabetic, talk turned to diet and food. We gave my dad a couple of Rich Tea biscuits, and I had a craving that was insanely strong. Yep, I now sniff biscuit barrels too.
"D'you want one...erm...Weight Watchers biscuit?" my mother asked.
I explained that my brain didn't work like that, that I didn't want one of anything - that I wanted a whole sleeve of Rich Tea, with either a big mug of milk or a big mug of tea, dunking four at a time, so on the one end they were soggy and fit to drop, and on the other, still strong enough to support the four tiers, for a beautifully-structured slurp...Oh and Crunchies. Four Crunchie bars, fresh from the fridge so they have a beautiful, cold snap, that dissolves on your tongue into too-sweet honeycomb goodness...mmmm and oh god, ice cream, with biscuits and Crunchie bits, and syrup and fudge cake and......
My mother coughed.
"So...erm...that'd be a no then, would it?" she said, as I realised everyone was staring at me.
"Err..." I smiled, weakly. "Yes," I said.
"The thing about dieting," said my dad, "is that when you talk to a dietician, they ask you what you like, and what you don't like, and then they tell you you can't have what you do like, and that what you don't like, you've got to have..."
Yes, OK, there's a certain amount of Daily Mailness to the contracted sentiment there, but you've got to admit, there's a certain fatalistic accuracy to his appraisal. "The real secret," he continued, "is having what you want, when you want it...just not as much as you want."
Given the way my brain works - and indeed the way I've achieved the body I have, that needs the radical action I'm now taking - there's a part of me to which this logic simply does not compute. But there's another big part of me that wishes, above all, I could have taken the man's advice a couple of decades ago.
On the other hand, looking through his music collection this weekend, I realised my dad also has a double-disc collection of the Best of the Black And White Minstrel Show...
Sigh...
Happy Father's Day to everyone whose fathers are a combination of actual wisdom and opinions you want to go absolutely nowhere near. Gotta love 'em, don'tcha?
Saturday, 18 June 2011
The 38s
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a given man, in possession of an ordinary penis, must, on occasion, be a dick.
I appear to have woken up this morning with the determination to be that dick. My mother, my wife and I went to Ebbw Vale, where much against d's will, it absolutely pissed down. (She has this delightful little delusion that it doesn't rain in Wales, bless her - it's like she's mainlining happyjuice a hundred percent of the time). I went mainly so I'd be out of the house, and to pop into a discount bookstore we always visit when we're in the area. And Christ, was I grumpy. I shrugged, and grunted, and slouched along like an oversized 40-year-old teenager. Mind you, this is something that always happens to me on our first full day staying with my folks - something, I think, to do with d and my mother getting on so terrifyingly well (I know, you should all have my problems, shouldn't you?). Don't know what it is, but when your wife and your mother get on appallingly well, and you're with them, there's something inherently infantilising about the experience. It's not intentional, it's just that their fundamental point of connection is you, and they each have different funny stories about you, and they take the opportunity to sync up, so it tends to make me teenage and grumpy.
"Oh look honey," said d, "we can get you some new trousers!"
I groaned.
"Don't want new trousers," I sulked. "Have said, I dunno how many times, to both of you, I don't want new trousers till I've lost a bit more!"
So - in a very real sense - nehh!
"Oh shush," said my mother. I don't just pluck my literary brilliance out of the air, you know.
"You need new trousers honey," said d. "I can't keep up with washing them when you only have two pairs, and one of them's way too big.
"Mumble mumble rassen frassen," was the essence of my response, as I slouched into the shop sourly.
"Try these," said d.
"Oh Goooooooood," I teenagered. "Don't wanna try things onnnnnnn."
"Please honey," said d. "For me. It's not an execution," she added, accurately.
"No," I mumbled, slouching into the changing room, "it's a hijacking."
I pulled on the trousers she'd handed me, and zipped them up. They were tight, certainly, but they did up, and I could sit down, get up, walk around and do a funny little dance - which are generally the main things I require of trousers. Well, that and that they cover my ass. They did.
"How are they?" d called from beyond the Curtain of Sulk.
"Fine!" I said. "Let's get 'em."
I emerged, and showed her that they covered me, did up, and allowed me to do my funny little dance.
She clapped her hands together, then flung her arms around me.
"I'm so happy for you baby!" she whispered in my ear. I hugged her, a bit clueless, patting her on the back at this explosion of emotion.
"Gooood," I said. "Erm...why?"
"They're size 38 honey," she explained.
I blinked.
"Really?"
She nodded eagerly.
I should explain here - my 'comfy trousers' are a size 46 - and yes, in this case, that's the number of inches we're talking about (that's 116.8 cm, for my bizarro metric friends). It should also be explained that I picked up those 46 inch trousers two Christmases ago, so this is not as huge a differential as it at first appears. My other pair of trousers are 42 inches in diameter (106.7cm), and they work perfectly well. BUT - at Christmas, (the last time I was in the same store), we went through this teenaged routine and I couldn't do a pair of size 40 trousers up. Now, I can do my silly little dance in a pair of size 38 (96.5cm).
We picked them up, and added a pair of size 34s to the basket too - as something to disappear into over time. Technically, what I have done since starting this experiment in February is dropped two sizes, or four inches. If I can do the same again, the size 34s will fit me by the next time I turn into a teenager and slouch into Ebbw Vale in the pissing-down rain.
You'd think such pleasing news would have ended my dickfest, wouldn't you? But apparently not - have mumbled and grumbled my way through much of the day, to some extent wasting the opportunity of spending time with my folks by being utterly self-revolving. On the upside, while there has of course been no biking today, I have helped move a roomful of furniture, which was far more of an all-over workout than I'm used to. On the down side, Composto appears to be launching a new attack on me, so I'm feeling like a big hopeless teenage puffball - all dangerous wind and grumpiness. This'll pass of course - Father's Day tomorrow, which will be good. No, honest, it will, I'll wake up like a different bloke tomorrow, this is just 'first day grumpiness' talking.
So perhaps I should just shut up and get on with it. Maybe?
I appear to have woken up this morning with the determination to be that dick. My mother, my wife and I went to Ebbw Vale, where much against d's will, it absolutely pissed down. (She has this delightful little delusion that it doesn't rain in Wales, bless her - it's like she's mainlining happyjuice a hundred percent of the time). I went mainly so I'd be out of the house, and to pop into a discount bookstore we always visit when we're in the area. And Christ, was I grumpy. I shrugged, and grunted, and slouched along like an oversized 40-year-old teenager. Mind you, this is something that always happens to me on our first full day staying with my folks - something, I think, to do with d and my mother getting on so terrifyingly well (I know, you should all have my problems, shouldn't you?). Don't know what it is, but when your wife and your mother get on appallingly well, and you're with them, there's something inherently infantilising about the experience. It's not intentional, it's just that their fundamental point of connection is you, and they each have different funny stories about you, and they take the opportunity to sync up, so it tends to make me teenage and grumpy.
"Oh look honey," said d, "we can get you some new trousers!"
I groaned.
"Don't want new trousers," I sulked. "Have said, I dunno how many times, to both of you, I don't want new trousers till I've lost a bit more!"
So - in a very real sense - nehh!
"Oh shush," said my mother. I don't just pluck my literary brilliance out of the air, you know.
"You need new trousers honey," said d. "I can't keep up with washing them when you only have two pairs, and one of them's way too big.
"Mumble mumble rassen frassen," was the essence of my response, as I slouched into the shop sourly.
"Try these," said d.
"Oh Goooooooood," I teenagered. "Don't wanna try things onnnnnnn."
"Please honey," said d. "For me. It's not an execution," she added, accurately.
"No," I mumbled, slouching into the changing room, "it's a hijacking."
I pulled on the trousers she'd handed me, and zipped them up. They were tight, certainly, but they did up, and I could sit down, get up, walk around and do a funny little dance - which are generally the main things I require of trousers. Well, that and that they cover my ass. They did.
"How are they?" d called from beyond the Curtain of Sulk.
"Fine!" I said. "Let's get 'em."
I emerged, and showed her that they covered me, did up, and allowed me to do my funny little dance.
She clapped her hands together, then flung her arms around me.
"I'm so happy for you baby!" she whispered in my ear. I hugged her, a bit clueless, patting her on the back at this explosion of emotion.
"Gooood," I said. "Erm...why?"
"They're size 38 honey," she explained.
I blinked.
"Really?"
She nodded eagerly.
I should explain here - my 'comfy trousers' are a size 46 - and yes, in this case, that's the number of inches we're talking about (that's 116.8 cm, for my bizarro metric friends). It should also be explained that I picked up those 46 inch trousers two Christmases ago, so this is not as huge a differential as it at first appears. My other pair of trousers are 42 inches in diameter (106.7cm), and they work perfectly well. BUT - at Christmas, (the last time I was in the same store), we went through this teenaged routine and I couldn't do a pair of size 40 trousers up. Now, I can do my silly little dance in a pair of size 38 (96.5cm).
We picked them up, and added a pair of size 34s to the basket too - as something to disappear into over time. Technically, what I have done since starting this experiment in February is dropped two sizes, or four inches. If I can do the same again, the size 34s will fit me by the next time I turn into a teenager and slouch into Ebbw Vale in the pissing-down rain.
You'd think such pleasing news would have ended my dickfest, wouldn't you? But apparently not - have mumbled and grumbled my way through much of the day, to some extent wasting the opportunity of spending time with my folks by being utterly self-revolving. On the upside, while there has of course been no biking today, I have helped move a roomful of furniture, which was far more of an all-over workout than I'm used to. On the down side, Composto appears to be launching a new attack on me, so I'm feeling like a big hopeless teenage puffball - all dangerous wind and grumpiness. This'll pass of course - Father's Day tomorrow, which will be good. No, honest, it will, I'll wake up like a different bloke tomorrow, this is just 'first day grumpiness' talking.
So perhaps I should just shut up and get on with it. Maybe?
Friday, 17 June 2011
You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine
d made my day today. Before we go any further, I should say that tonight we were scheduled to go from London back to my home town of Merthyr Tydfil for the weekend, it being Father's Day on Sunday, so we met up at Paddington Station to get the Veal Train (the first supposedly cheap train across the country on a Friday night...which isn't cheap at all, and is, always, packed to the rafters with hot, backpacked people, all muttering about how ridiculous it is that they've paid as much as they have...).
"Look, look," she said, positively brandishing the daily paper at me. "You and Russell, separated at birth!"
Now, here there's a little more background needed. I'm assuming there can't be many men, other than his friends, who have to thank Russell Crowe at their wedding. I did.
The reason is that technically, I owe Russell Crowe my marriage, and a good handful of enduring friendships. When I escaped from Bristol and came to London, all freshly single and up for anything, I got back in touch with a pal of mine from journo school called Mary. When we'd been journoing together, she was writing a story about Captain Jack Aubrey. This, I didn't realise at the time, was my first real introduction to Fan Fiction - she was a heavy Russell Crowe fan, and was writing what she was quite happy to admit was pure smut, about his character in the movie Master and Commander. As I say, I didn't know that, because I was pretty much a blinking, wide-eyed boyscout at the time. Anyway, when I arrived in London, I got back in touch with Mary.
"You do a bit of writing, don'tcha?" said Mary. "Come and join my group."
Her group was a Yahoo! Group for writers, called Feeding Our Beautiful Minds. Nope, still didn't get it. Did I mention? Boyscout.
This turned out to be a writing group mainly - but, importantly, not exclusively, for writers of Russell Crowe Fan Fiction. A Beautiful Mind...yeah, that really should have clicked, but obviously, I'm glad it didn't.
Here among the fan fictionalists, there was a woman from New York State, who didn't write fan fiction, but described herself as the 'group mascot' - encouraging and working with any writers who wanted to 'play catch' with their projects.
That was d. We started talking, and then started talking, and a lot of the rest is history. So - Russell Crowe inadvertantly led me to my marriage.
He also stopped me in my tracks one day early in our marriage, when, walking through our local mall, d came out with this line: "Y'know, Tom Hanks is the kind of man you marry. Russell Crowe's the kind of man you..." There was a strange, growly kittenish noise that followed. Then she grinned, and blinked, and carried on walking.
Clearly, that's a thing that's stayed with me over the years. Can't imagine why.
So, today, Paddington, the paper. Whap, it went down on the table, on which for reasons that now escape both of us, we were having pie and mash. It was a photo of Russell, walking today. And...fair enough, I could see the resemblance. Sure, I still have a face rather more like a Sontaran than a gladiator, and yes, my man-breasts are still rather more perky and pronounced than Russell's (and yes, in case you're wondering, I appear to be on a quest to get the phrase 'man-breasts' into nearly every post - just treat it as a drinking game and get legless!). But in the bubble of belly, the breastiness, the bulging clothing, I could actually see the similarity.
This is a day I never thought I'd see - the day you could almost legitimately compare photos of me and Russell Crowe and think "Mmm...cousins."
So take heart, skinny folks everywhere - if Russell can do it, you can do it. You too can have a body like mine. Send cheques for $100 to find out how...
"Look, look," she said, positively brandishing the daily paper at me. "You and Russell, separated at birth!"
Now, here there's a little more background needed. I'm assuming there can't be many men, other than his friends, who have to thank Russell Crowe at their wedding. I did.
The reason is that technically, I owe Russell Crowe my marriage, and a good handful of enduring friendships. When I escaped from Bristol and came to London, all freshly single and up for anything, I got back in touch with a pal of mine from journo school called Mary. When we'd been journoing together, she was writing a story about Captain Jack Aubrey. This, I didn't realise at the time, was my first real introduction to Fan Fiction - she was a heavy Russell Crowe fan, and was writing what she was quite happy to admit was pure smut, about his character in the movie Master and Commander. As I say, I didn't know that, because I was pretty much a blinking, wide-eyed boyscout at the time. Anyway, when I arrived in London, I got back in touch with Mary.
"You do a bit of writing, don'tcha?" said Mary. "Come and join my group."
Her group was a Yahoo! Group for writers, called Feeding Our Beautiful Minds. Nope, still didn't get it. Did I mention? Boyscout.
This turned out to be a writing group mainly - but, importantly, not exclusively, for writers of Russell Crowe Fan Fiction. A Beautiful Mind...yeah, that really should have clicked, but obviously, I'm glad it didn't.
Here among the fan fictionalists, there was a woman from New York State, who didn't write fan fiction, but described herself as the 'group mascot' - encouraging and working with any writers who wanted to 'play catch' with their projects.
That was d. We started talking, and then started talking, and a lot of the rest is history. So - Russell Crowe inadvertantly led me to my marriage.
He also stopped me in my tracks one day early in our marriage, when, walking through our local mall, d came out with this line: "Y'know, Tom Hanks is the kind of man you marry. Russell Crowe's the kind of man you..." There was a strange, growly kittenish noise that followed. Then she grinned, and blinked, and carried on walking.
Clearly, that's a thing that's stayed with me over the years. Can't imagine why.
So, today, Paddington, the paper. Whap, it went down on the table, on which for reasons that now escape both of us, we were having pie and mash. It was a photo of Russell, walking today. And...fair enough, I could see the resemblance. Sure, I still have a face rather more like a Sontaran than a gladiator, and yes, my man-breasts are still rather more perky and pronounced than Russell's (and yes, in case you're wondering, I appear to be on a quest to get the phrase 'man-breasts' into nearly every post - just treat it as a drinking game and get legless!). But in the bubble of belly, the breastiness, the bulging clothing, I could actually see the similarity.
This is a day I never thought I'd see - the day you could almost legitimately compare photos of me and Russell Crowe and think "Mmm...cousins."
So take heart, skinny folks everywhere - if Russell can do it, you can do it. You too can have a body like mine. Send cheques for $100 to find out how...
Thursday, 16 June 2011
The...erm...Light Side?
(Tony Skystomper sits in a Tattooine diner, licking pasta sauce off his fingers. Yoda approaches, furrows his brow.)
Yoda: Hmm...Unwise you have been, yes? (Sniffs). Many carbs have you eaten.
Tony: (lets out a monstous, Jabba-the-Hutt belch) Yep. So?
Yoda: Mmmm...much bread the Skinny Jedi do not eat (pokes Tony with stick)...mmm...
Tony: Yeah, but there are two ways to look at today, right?
Yoda: No! One way! Only one way leads to Skinny Jedihood..the way of the lettuce this is, yess....
Tony: Shut it Greeny! What I mean is, I can stress and freak and bike my ass off every single day, and get all restless and mental and trippy. Or I can say "Y'know what? I have to chill the Hell out some times. It's not like I've been quaffing melted butter from a duck's arse or something. I've had a couple of chicken sandwiches and a small portion of pasta - whaddaya gonna do? Force-Bitchslap me or something? Oh and another thing, why don't you talk the right way round, for God's sake?
Yoda: (Poking Tony repeatedly with the stick). Up! Up! Up onto the bike you must go, yes. The pedal paves your way to really dull clothes and a cool weapon...hmm...
Tony: No bike in the States, was there? I'm doing....stuff...I'm doing stuff and I'm too damn busy tonight to get on the bike, and I'm not gonna freak out about it, and you're not gonna make me feel bad about it, so nehhh...!
(Yoda turns and shuffles away, shaking his furry-eared little green head)
Yoda: Mmm...remember this on Tuesday you will...mmm...
(Tony lets out another colossal belch).
Yoda: Hmm...Unwise you have been, yes? (Sniffs). Many carbs have you eaten.
Tony: (lets out a monstous, Jabba-the-Hutt belch) Yep. So?
Yoda: Mmmm...much bread the Skinny Jedi do not eat (pokes Tony with stick)...mmm...
Tony: Yeah, but there are two ways to look at today, right?
Yoda: No! One way! Only one way leads to Skinny Jedihood..the way of the lettuce this is, yess....
Tony: Shut it Greeny! What I mean is, I can stress and freak and bike my ass off every single day, and get all restless and mental and trippy. Or I can say "Y'know what? I have to chill the Hell out some times. It's not like I've been quaffing melted butter from a duck's arse or something. I've had a couple of chicken sandwiches and a small portion of pasta - whaddaya gonna do? Force-Bitchslap me or something? Oh and another thing, why don't you talk the right way round, for God's sake?
Yoda: (Poking Tony repeatedly with the stick). Up! Up! Up onto the bike you must go, yes. The pedal paves your way to really dull clothes and a cool weapon...hmm...
Tony: No bike in the States, was there? I'm doing....stuff...I'm doing stuff and I'm too damn busy tonight to get on the bike, and I'm not gonna freak out about it, and you're not gonna make me feel bad about it, so nehhh...!
(Yoda turns and shuffles away, shaking his furry-eared little green head)
Yoda: Mmm...remember this on Tuesday you will...mmm...
(Tony lets out another colossal belch).
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
The Dark Side
...(Tony marches onto a vast man-breast-shaped Death Star...gets shagged out halfway along a huge long hallway filled with fat stormtroopers trying to eat popcorn through their helmets...pushes on to where Darth Vader stands with his back to us all, staring out of the Death Tit's nipple-shaped viewing window)
Tony: Lord Vader!
(Lord Vader turns round, slowly and with his own theme music. Turns out he's got a straw through his visor-grille, and is sucking up an enormous ice-cream sundae. He makes the iron-lung noise for a few intimidating seconds. There's an iron-lung swallowing sound)
Lord Vader: I find your interruption of my Evil Sith Lord Chocolate Sundae...disturbing.
Tony: Err...yeah. Sorry about that.
Lord Vader: Speak!
Tony: Lord Vader, my name is Tony, and I...I have gone to the Dark Side...
Lord Vader: Hmm...really? I'm sensing nothing. I mean, seriously, nada. Not so much as a single misbehaving midichlorian...
Tony: Well, no, it's not -
Lord Vader: Have you crushed a planet beneath the heel of your boot?
Tony (looks down at velcro-strapped trainers): Erm, no, you see, it's...
Lord Vader: Have you enslaved a galaxy to the intoxicating power of wanton cruelty?
Tony: Ermmmm....not lately, no...
Lord Vader: Have you choked an incompetent underling to death with the awesome power of your disturbed mind?
Tony: Again, I'd have to say...erm...no. Not for want of trying mind, but...
(Lord Vader's blank stare fills the screen for three long seconds, as the iron-lung does its job)
Lord Vader: You're a hippie, aren't you?
Tony: Erm...well, sort of, yeah, but that's not-
Lord Vader: What did you do? Accidentally tread on an ant? Fail to bring your boss his cinnamon muffin this morning? Forget to floss??
Tony: Nono, nothing like that. It's just...I'm calculating the caloric intake of your Sith Lord Sundae as we speak, and working out how much exercise you'd have to do to burn it off.
Lord Vader: You're...what?
Tony: See, it started yesterday, when I had a good result on my Tuesday weigh-in, and then I got kinda paranoid that it was just gonna be a one-off, so I was like "Right, that's not gonna happen, I'm gonna push and push and push to make sure I lose more next week," and so, y'know, I went out for dinner with my wife, cos it was payday and it's a tradition, and I had what they call a 'lighter option' for my dinner, which they said was only 600 calories, and then I went home and jumped on my exercise bike, and cycled for an hour or so, and then I was pretty much done, but I hadn't burned off those 600 calories, let alone the calories in everything else I ate throughout the course of the day, and so I got back on the bike until it was nearly 11 o'clock and I burned off the 600 calories, but then I started thinking about all the other stuff I ate, cos there was a lot of bread yesterday, and a jacket potato, and I didn't really mean to but I had cheese on it, and cheese is pure fat, and I even had some deep fried rice balls as a starter last night - a starter, can you believe it! - and I added all that up and I was like "no way is that under a thousand calories" - cos I should say, my doctor told me that to lose weight I probably had to take in, on balance, less than a thousand calories a day - and so I was restless in the night, and d, that's my wife, by the way, you'd love her, she bakes, she said she thought I was probably sleep-cycling and that teenage girls in California are probably less calorie-obsessed than me right now and the thing is I think she's probably right, so what I was wondering is...well, really twofold, I suppose, I mean firstly, I've heard that on the Dark Side, there are cookies, and I wondered if I might possibly have some without my mind exploding in a sea of calorie-values, and, well, secondly, whether you might possibly see your way clear to shooting me through the head before I go completely insane with the exhausting numerical nonsense of my own brain...erm...please.
(Lord Vader ponders for a moment. All is iron-lung noise).
Lord Vader: This is The Dark Side. There are no cookies.
Tony: Oh...
Lord Vader: And for God's sake, get a grip, boy...
(Lord Vader turns back to look out the window. There is the noise of ice-cream slurping up a straw).
Tony: Lord Vader!
(Lord Vader turns round, slowly and with his own theme music. Turns out he's got a straw through his visor-grille, and is sucking up an enormous ice-cream sundae. He makes the iron-lung noise for a few intimidating seconds. There's an iron-lung swallowing sound)
Lord Vader: I find your interruption of my Evil Sith Lord Chocolate Sundae...disturbing.
Tony: Err...yeah. Sorry about that.
Lord Vader: Speak!
Tony: Lord Vader, my name is Tony, and I...I have gone to the Dark Side...
Lord Vader: Hmm...really? I'm sensing nothing. I mean, seriously, nada. Not so much as a single misbehaving midichlorian...
Tony: Well, no, it's not -
Lord Vader: Have you crushed a planet beneath the heel of your boot?
Tony (looks down at velcro-strapped trainers): Erm, no, you see, it's...
Lord Vader: Have you enslaved a galaxy to the intoxicating power of wanton cruelty?
Tony: Ermmmm....not lately, no...
Lord Vader: Have you choked an incompetent underling to death with the awesome power of your disturbed mind?
Tony: Again, I'd have to say...erm...no. Not for want of trying mind, but...
(Lord Vader's blank stare fills the screen for three long seconds, as the iron-lung does its job)
Lord Vader: You're a hippie, aren't you?
Tony: Erm...well, sort of, yeah, but that's not-
Lord Vader: What did you do? Accidentally tread on an ant? Fail to bring your boss his cinnamon muffin this morning? Forget to floss??
Tony: Nono, nothing like that. It's just...I'm calculating the caloric intake of your Sith Lord Sundae as we speak, and working out how much exercise you'd have to do to burn it off.
Lord Vader: You're...what?
Tony: See, it started yesterday, when I had a good result on my Tuesday weigh-in, and then I got kinda paranoid that it was just gonna be a one-off, so I was like "Right, that's not gonna happen, I'm gonna push and push and push to make sure I lose more next week," and so, y'know, I went out for dinner with my wife, cos it was payday and it's a tradition, and I had what they call a 'lighter option' for my dinner, which they said was only 600 calories, and then I went home and jumped on my exercise bike, and cycled for an hour or so, and then I was pretty much done, but I hadn't burned off those 600 calories, let alone the calories in everything else I ate throughout the course of the day, and so I got back on the bike until it was nearly 11 o'clock and I burned off the 600 calories, but then I started thinking about all the other stuff I ate, cos there was a lot of bread yesterday, and a jacket potato, and I didn't really mean to but I had cheese on it, and cheese is pure fat, and I even had some deep fried rice balls as a starter last night - a starter, can you believe it! - and I added all that up and I was like "no way is that under a thousand calories" - cos I should say, my doctor told me that to lose weight I probably had to take in, on balance, less than a thousand calories a day - and so I was restless in the night, and d, that's my wife, by the way, you'd love her, she bakes, she said she thought I was probably sleep-cycling and that teenage girls in California are probably less calorie-obsessed than me right now and the thing is I think she's probably right, so what I was wondering is...well, really twofold, I suppose, I mean firstly, I've heard that on the Dark Side, there are cookies, and I wondered if I might possibly have some without my mind exploding in a sea of calorie-values, and, well, secondly, whether you might possibly see your way clear to shooting me through the head before I go completely insane with the exhausting numerical nonsense of my own brain...erm...please.
(Lord Vader ponders for a moment. All is iron-lung noise).
Lord Vader: This is The Dark Side. There are no cookies.
Tony: Oh...
Lord Vader: And for God's sake, get a grip, boy...
(Lord Vader turns back to look out the window. There is the noise of ice-cream slurping up a straw).
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Halle-Freakin-Lujah!
Well, it took forever, but here's the news today:
That's the tiniest, barest smidgen of a fart over the line, but goddammit, it's over it. So, both of the landmarks I mentioned not hitting last week...I've hit this week. Firstly, at the point of hitting 19 stone and half a pound, I crossed the 'stone and a half' rubicon, joining the likes of my mate Tig, who's been president of the stone-and-a-half club for a week or more. And less actually-significantly, but more symbolic-significantly, I've finally changed my stone-number a second time, so I'm in the realms of the 18ers...
It occurs to me that with so many people on so many diets, hitting the stone-and-a-half marker does not constitute a unique selling point for me wittering along here, being all dramatic and histrionic and (dramatic voice) 'The Disappearing Man'. It's when we come to the point of having lost three stone, four stone, six stone that this whole experiment will start to come into its own. Till then, it's kind of just 'fat bloke loses weight, bitches quite a lot, has occasional giggle' really, innit?
But hey, today's a good and giggly day. Am off to drape myself in bunting once again (it's becoming something of a fetish, if I'm honest, but that's another story) and dance around the streets going "Look at me! I'm a slightly thinner fat-fuck than I was a couple of months ago!!"...to the complete mystification of people who still just see a fat fuck. Might hand out random cucumbers, just because.
Blood was 5.2 this morning, by the way.
18 stone, 13.75 pounds.
That's the tiniest, barest smidgen of a fart over the line, but goddammit, it's over it. So, both of the landmarks I mentioned not hitting last week...I've hit this week. Firstly, at the point of hitting 19 stone and half a pound, I crossed the 'stone and a half' rubicon, joining the likes of my mate Tig, who's been president of the stone-and-a-half club for a week or more. And less actually-significantly, but more symbolic-significantly, I've finally changed my stone-number a second time, so I'm in the realms of the 18ers...
It occurs to me that with so many people on so many diets, hitting the stone-and-a-half marker does not constitute a unique selling point for me wittering along here, being all dramatic and histrionic and (dramatic voice) 'The Disappearing Man'. It's when we come to the point of having lost three stone, four stone, six stone that this whole experiment will start to come into its own. Till then, it's kind of just 'fat bloke loses weight, bitches quite a lot, has occasional giggle' really, innit?
But hey, today's a good and giggly day. Am off to drape myself in bunting once again (it's becoming something of a fetish, if I'm honest, but that's another story) and dance around the streets going "Look at me! I'm a slightly thinner fat-fuck than I was a couple of months ago!!"...to the complete mystification of people who still just see a fat fuck. Might hand out random cucumbers, just because.
Blood was 5.2 this morning, by the way.
Monday, 13 June 2011
Life's A Mitch
Today's blog comes to you pretty much inspired by Mitch Benn. I'd set it to music if I had an instrument or two.
For those who don't know, Mitch is a British comedy singer-songwriter, who, like most people, is doing better than me at this whole weightloss thing. He used to be a little bit heavier than me (maybe a stone or so), but he's also at least half a foot taller...If you imagine comparing Chewbacca with Shrek, you pretty much get the differential. Now he looks like a different person, whereas I look like a bit of a slimmer version of myself.
Anyway, what this has to do with the price of exquisitely battered, flaky, salt-zing fish is this. I spotted a tweet of his earlier today that said he was sitting in Soho waiting for some friends, and realising how many of the bistros all around him were serving up plate after plate of gorgeous food...not a bit of which he was going to allow himself to eat, so as not to fall off the weightloss wagon.
This almost-entirely mirrored my experience today. You see, today was another work from home day (What do you mean "Another one??!" - the phone was knackered, I had to wait in for the repairman.)
Days at home used to be suuuuuuch fun. I'd start with a humungo-cereal bowl, maybe step out at lunchtime to the local Pizza Hut for a big-ass pizza, pick up some dessert, do the occasional bit of work...maybe...and basically just enjoy being alive.
Now - what am I looking forward to? More salads? Extra biking? What? All the culinary fun has gone out of days at home. Even my cereal choice these days is Bran Flakes...OK, it's not the Amish joysucker that is Shredded Wheat, but it's hardly a party cereal, is it?...it's a symphony of brown. Every day has pretty much become a day sitting in Soho, surrounded by great food, trying to get enthusiastic about lettuce and water, while my inner, innnnfinitely more sensible self screams "BOOOOOOOOOOORED!!!" I'm coming to the realisation that you don't actually live any longer if you eat healthily - it just FEELS longer, cos you're never done chewing!
Sigh...
If anybody wants me, I'll be celebrating the idea that tomorrow's a weigh-in Tuesday...on the bike.
For those who don't know, Mitch is a British comedy singer-songwriter, who, like most people, is doing better than me at this whole weightloss thing. He used to be a little bit heavier than me (maybe a stone or so), but he's also at least half a foot taller...If you imagine comparing Chewbacca with Shrek, you pretty much get the differential. Now he looks like a different person, whereas I look like a bit of a slimmer version of myself.
Anyway, what this has to do with the price of exquisitely battered, flaky, salt-zing fish is this. I spotted a tweet of his earlier today that said he was sitting in Soho waiting for some friends, and realising how many of the bistros all around him were serving up plate after plate of gorgeous food...not a bit of which he was going to allow himself to eat, so as not to fall off the weightloss wagon.
This almost-entirely mirrored my experience today. You see, today was another work from home day (What do you mean "Another one??!" - the phone was knackered, I had to wait in for the repairman.)
Days at home used to be suuuuuuch fun. I'd start with a humungo-cereal bowl, maybe step out at lunchtime to the local Pizza Hut for a big-ass pizza, pick up some dessert, do the occasional bit of work...maybe...and basically just enjoy being alive.
Now - what am I looking forward to? More salads? Extra biking? What? All the culinary fun has gone out of days at home. Even my cereal choice these days is Bran Flakes...OK, it's not the Amish joysucker that is Shredded Wheat, but it's hardly a party cereal, is it?...it's a symphony of brown. Every day has pretty much become a day sitting in Soho, surrounded by great food, trying to get enthusiastic about lettuce and water, while my inner, innnnfinitely more sensible self screams "BOOOOOOOOOOORED!!!" I'm coming to the realisation that you don't actually live any longer if you eat healthily - it just FEELS longer, cos you're never done chewing!
Sigh...
If anybody wants me, I'll be celebrating the idea that tomorrow's a weigh-in Tuesday...on the bike.
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Comfort Food
Comfort is an interesting concept. It's what we seek when we feel low, and it makes us feel better - usually, if not always, without actually changing the circumstances that made us low in the first place.
Hot coffee can make you feel alive and envigorated, or centred and relaxed. The smell of fresh bread can make you want to get a mortgage, want to get it on, or want to have a bundle of joy (Just a note - do this in the right order or you're likely to be confused and disappointed). Over the last few days, it won't surprise you to know I've sniffed a lot of cake.
Carrot cake, lemon cake, coconut slices...
Then there was last night.
I should stress, last night was an aberration. Last night was a thing between me and a beautiful piece of coffee cake, with the cutest walnuts you ever did see. d opened up the plastic box, and it wafted up at me, fluttering its putative eyelashes at me. I took a deep, deep sniff.
And...erm...well, there's no easy way to say this...Y'know how, when you smell something utterly delicious, you get a salivary response, and sense memories, and probably even endorphins too, flooding your system? Well, endorphins are tricky little things, and they don't necessarily have any discretion, or...any sense of direction. So I got the salivary response, and the sense memories, and the endorphins, and then I got...well, let's just say, another response.
"Hello?" said d.
"Erm..." I said. I mean, what do you say? "Sorry honey, not to detract from the solemnity of the day, but I'm all sorts of turned on by coffee cake right now, can we...no I guess not?"!
Fortunately, d laughed - y'see, getting a free pass at moments like that is one of the many many reasons I love the woman.
"Ahem..." she said. "This might be the first case of blue taste-buds in recorded history," she pointed out.
I sniffed the cake again - hey, she was laughing, what am I gonna do, miss the opportunity?
d laughed again. Thankfully.
Today, I started off with high blood sugar - 7.2, but this is a combination of having forgotten my diabetic pills for a few days, and eating a pasta meal last night - and we came home from Dover. We weren't home long before we felt the need for a nap - no really, a nap! We have no cake here at home. And when we woke up, there was only one thing on both our minds.
Pizza, of course. Thankfully, the guys at our local Pizza Hut must presumably have read the entry on my brand new strategy, cos what they send me was practically filled to the brim with green chillis, that turned my pizza into an inedible inferno.
So...erm...yay. Time to jump on the bike for a couple of miles of culinary cold-showering before all this slams into the reality of a new week.
(Sigh) And on we go...
Hot coffee can make you feel alive and envigorated, or centred and relaxed. The smell of fresh bread can make you want to get a mortgage, want to get it on, or want to have a bundle of joy (Just a note - do this in the right order or you're likely to be confused and disappointed). Over the last few days, it won't surprise you to know I've sniffed a lot of cake.
Carrot cake, lemon cake, coconut slices...
Then there was last night.
I should stress, last night was an aberration. Last night was a thing between me and a beautiful piece of coffee cake, with the cutest walnuts you ever did see. d opened up the plastic box, and it wafted up at me, fluttering its putative eyelashes at me. I took a deep, deep sniff.
And...erm...well, there's no easy way to say this...Y'know how, when you smell something utterly delicious, you get a salivary response, and sense memories, and probably even endorphins too, flooding your system? Well, endorphins are tricky little things, and they don't necessarily have any discretion, or...any sense of direction. So I got the salivary response, and the sense memories, and the endorphins, and then I got...well, let's just say, another response.
"Hello?" said d.
"Erm..." I said. I mean, what do you say? "Sorry honey, not to detract from the solemnity of the day, but I'm all sorts of turned on by coffee cake right now, can we...no I guess not?"!
Fortunately, d laughed - y'see, getting a free pass at moments like that is one of the many many reasons I love the woman.
"Ahem..." she said. "This might be the first case of blue taste-buds in recorded history," she pointed out.
I sniffed the cake again - hey, she was laughing, what am I gonna do, miss the opportunity?
d laughed again. Thankfully.
Today, I started off with high blood sugar - 7.2, but this is a combination of having forgotten my diabetic pills for a few days, and eating a pasta meal last night - and we came home from Dover. We weren't home long before we felt the need for a nap - no really, a nap! We have no cake here at home. And when we woke up, there was only one thing on both our minds.
Pizza, of course. Thankfully, the guys at our local Pizza Hut must presumably have read the entry on my brand new strategy, cos what they send me was practically filled to the brim with green chillis, that turned my pizza into an inedible inferno.
So...erm...yay. Time to jump on the bike for a couple of miles of culinary cold-showering before all this slams into the reality of a new week.
(Sigh) And on we go...
Saturday, 11 June 2011
Gone With The Wind
There are people who reach into your life and change it utterly, like whirlwinds. And then there are people who are not whirlwinds, but who bend your life gently, like a breeze, by the simple fact of their presence, and lead you where you didn't know you needed or wanted to be.
Rita Faith Bova (nee Manning) was no whirlwind. She was one of those people who diverted streams by being who she was, and without her, I'd be a completely different person today than I am, and a much lesser one. So today, don't look to me for comedy, or madcap silliness, or schtick. Which is not to say today was free of comedy and madcap silliness and schtick. Quite the opposite - frustratingly unable to share the same physical space as the rest of those whose lives she touched and rippled and helped to form, we've come to Dover, with which she felt a connection despite never having had the freedom to come and visit. I'd planned to have a bouquet of flowers waiting for d when we arrived yesterday, but bless 'em, the staff had had what they called 'a blonde moment' and hadn't got them. They arrived this morning, and included one small, perfect pink rose (which resonated because Rita was a fantastic rose-gardener), and some Hawaiian ginger, which took d back to a time when Rita had been most alive, and most herself - a little more than two decades ago, my girl took her mom to Hawaii. It was just the two of them, and the stories of that trip are plenty madcap. It was a time when d was able to give her mom a window, to escape the hardships of the everyday, have fun and be most genuinely alive. So to get the Hawaiian resonance today felt like a special gift.
The day was passed, as funeral days most often are, in memories and storytelling, in laughter and occasional tears. For us, it was also spent in thinking of those still living in her immediate gap, and wishing we could do much more to ease their day along.
As the day wore on, the clouds began to lour over a previously beauty-blue-skied Dover. They chilled the air right down to Winter, and a thin damp drizzle grew serious and thick. And the rain fell.
I'm not one for signs and portents, but it was pleasing to see, and feel, this darkness and this rain. Much like myself, Rita had always said she wanted rain for her funeral. In my case, make no mistake, I just want to make you all freezing and steamy and generally imbue the sense of grand misery that I think my passing would warrant. I'm not sure if if Rita's lively sense of mischief made her reasoning the same as mine - but while I bow to no-one in my appreciation of her sense of humour, I don't think she was as mean as I am. Nevertheless, she wanted cold, and rain and cloudy, and by jingo, we had it. If you want to read in, you could imagine that she wanted all these things, but wanted Larry to be comfortable, so she hit us with them all instead. Fair play, Rita Faith, that was neatly done.
When the time came that we knew her funeral was due to begin, d said ten silent Hail Marys, and I said a single silent Hail Rita, and we each plucked petals from the rose, and kissed them softly, and sent them scattered to the sea, to set our loved one free. Free from all the pain she's now escaped from in this world. Free from all the stress she felt for her beloved son. Free from a life that offered much but never quite came through for her. Free to be forever in our thoughts, and in our lives.
There are a kind of people, who when they leave us, make us feel like we will never see their kind again. We mourn more for our own misfortune, missing them, than for an ill we don't believe they any longer suffer. That's how today feels - as though not just a person but an era and a way of being has slipped away from us forever, gone with the wind of untimely change. And so we grieve our loss, and the loss of the world which never now will know her. But Rita Faith Bova was alive, and changed my life forever, and now is gone, set free to water and to wind, and given to earth and all its beauty. And to our lives, and memories, as long as we can share them.
Rita Faith Bova (nee Manning) was no whirlwind. She was one of those people who diverted streams by being who she was, and without her, I'd be a completely different person today than I am, and a much lesser one. So today, don't look to me for comedy, or madcap silliness, or schtick. Which is not to say today was free of comedy and madcap silliness and schtick. Quite the opposite - frustratingly unable to share the same physical space as the rest of those whose lives she touched and rippled and helped to form, we've come to Dover, with which she felt a connection despite never having had the freedom to come and visit. I'd planned to have a bouquet of flowers waiting for d when we arrived yesterday, but bless 'em, the staff had had what they called 'a blonde moment' and hadn't got them. They arrived this morning, and included one small, perfect pink rose (which resonated because Rita was a fantastic rose-gardener), and some Hawaiian ginger, which took d back to a time when Rita had been most alive, and most herself - a little more than two decades ago, my girl took her mom to Hawaii. It was just the two of them, and the stories of that trip are plenty madcap. It was a time when d was able to give her mom a window, to escape the hardships of the everyday, have fun and be most genuinely alive. So to get the Hawaiian resonance today felt like a special gift.
The day was passed, as funeral days most often are, in memories and storytelling, in laughter and occasional tears. For us, it was also spent in thinking of those still living in her immediate gap, and wishing we could do much more to ease their day along.
As the day wore on, the clouds began to lour over a previously beauty-blue-skied Dover. They chilled the air right down to Winter, and a thin damp drizzle grew serious and thick. And the rain fell.
I'm not one for signs and portents, but it was pleasing to see, and feel, this darkness and this rain. Much like myself, Rita had always said she wanted rain for her funeral. In my case, make no mistake, I just want to make you all freezing and steamy and generally imbue the sense of grand misery that I think my passing would warrant. I'm not sure if if Rita's lively sense of mischief made her reasoning the same as mine - but while I bow to no-one in my appreciation of her sense of humour, I don't think she was as mean as I am. Nevertheless, she wanted cold, and rain and cloudy, and by jingo, we had it. If you want to read in, you could imagine that she wanted all these things, but wanted Larry to be comfortable, so she hit us with them all instead. Fair play, Rita Faith, that was neatly done.
When the time came that we knew her funeral was due to begin, d said ten silent Hail Marys, and I said a single silent Hail Rita, and we each plucked petals from the rose, and kissed them softly, and sent them scattered to the sea, to set our loved one free. Free from all the pain she's now escaped from in this world. Free from all the stress she felt for her beloved son. Free from a life that offered much but never quite came through for her. Free to be forever in our thoughts, and in our lives.
There are a kind of people, who when they leave us, make us feel like we will never see their kind again. We mourn more for our own misfortune, missing them, than for an ill we don't believe they any longer suffer. That's how today feels - as though not just a person but an era and a way of being has slipped away from us forever, gone with the wind of untimely change. And so we grieve our loss, and the loss of the world which never now will know her. But Rita Faith Bova was alive, and changed my life forever, and now is gone, set free to water and to wind, and given to earth and all its beauty. And to our lives, and memories, as long as we can share them.
Friday, 10 June 2011
A Brand New Strategy
So, let’s see. Today is the day before Rita’s funeral. Having gone to see her while she was still here, we can’t make it to the funeral in person, so we’ve come away to Dover for the weekend. Rita had a connection to the White Cliffs, inasmuch as the song about what were technically North American birds, of a certain…shall we say, blue…variety and their prophesied flightpath over said cliffs made a big impression on her during the war years, and we only really came here the first time, years ago, because it had made that impression on her, and thus on d, for many years.
So here we are, in a beautiful hotel, with a view of the harbour, and the Cliffs just outside our door (look left).
And I’ve discovered a brand new strategy for this whole weight loss thing. It’s this:
Simply put a lot of inedible stuff on a plate. Then you can legitimately not eat very much of it, and go for long walks along the seashore to make up for it.
Clever, huh?
I’m at perhaps my most dazzlingly brilliant on days like this. So far, I’ve booked a ferry, perplexed at the idea that it takes ‘two and a half hours’ to go from Britain to France, and only half an hour to get back, schlepped from Stratford to St Pancras only to catch a train whose first stop turned out, in fact, to be Stratford, and suggested Tangled as a great evening's pre-funeral entertainment for my wife. A story of a princess trappped in a tower, with songs like "Mother Knows Best" and scenes of the poor girl on a day trip where she's enjoying herself one minute, and feeling horrible about being happy and what her happiness will mean to her mother the next.
So clearly, I'm batting three for three today, and have total confidence in my new weightloss strategy. In fairness, I can't claim this is entirely original to me. It's the brainchild of a local restaurant, which served up leek and potato soup which was actually black pepper soup, and a plaice dish that, once d had beheaded it and ripped its spine out, was basically a couple of spoonfuls of watery flake-flesh, further ruined by a vermouth sauce of unparallelled nastiness, and accompanied by a salad that was - and clearly, this takes a lot of admitting for a big, butch, hairy-testicled hunk of moderately wobbly man-flesh like myself - the best thing on the table, and of which I still only managed a handful of bites.
But it occurs to me that there are plenty of different pathways to go down - you can eat nice things, and struggle like a bastard to lose an occasional pound or two. Or you can face yourself with with platefuls of rubbery goo and bizarre sauces and even blue cheese, and not want to eat a single damn morsel, and probably end up looking like Prince Freakin' Charming (sorry, Disney-overload!) in about half a handful of heartbeats...
There will be those who think I'm just being mindlessly facetious.
Y'know, those who have been paying attention...
Thursday, 9 June 2011
The Survivor Diet
To quote 80s TV punk Vivvian, as played by Ade Edmondson in The Young Ones...
"Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored."
(Grabs cricket bat, start whacking people round the head...including himself)
"BORED! BORED! BORED!!! BORED!!! BORED! BORED!! BOOOOOOORED!!!!"
Or, to quote 90s TV space-rat Dave Lister, as played by Craig Charles in Red Dwarf...
"I'm sick of it. Just totally, totally sick of it. I'm sick of you, I'm sick of me....I'm just sick of it..."
Might be getting the feeling I'm in a bit of a trough right now. It's probably not all to do with the pathetic, minimally-important 'gone back up a pound'ness of Tuesday's result. It's everything - it's death and finance, it's work and too-far family, it's the combination of the return of Captain Draino to his rightful place in my life and feeling fat and heavy and powerless and pointless and altogether at my least perky and funny since we started this quest. I feel like I need to grab a baseball bat and head to the batting cage, or rip down our garden fence and pound the bejeesus out of next-door's boxing 'man'. Instead of which, I'm piddling about here, writing words, and watching, of all things, Man Vs Food - a nutcase called Adam Richman eating...well, basically the world. Right now he's eating every gorgeous thing you could ever barbecue the crap out of.
On reflection, it's probably just as well I don't have the baseball bat, right now. Shouldn't be watching this jealous-making fuck...who's just moved on to a fifteen-milkshake 'challenge' (pass them here, ya pussy, I'll chug those beauties right now. Challenge, my ass!). What I should be watching right now is Survivor. Y'know, miserable people starving to death, bitching at each other, running around in horrendous heat, freezing to death every night and having to eat rats to survive...Hell, watch it, I should be on the Survivor Diet right about now...except of course for the fact that I'd probably end up killing and roasting them all on a big-ass spit.
Mmmm....Barbecued Survivor...
OK, clearly need to go away now. Still have to do some cycling tonight. And no, before you ask, didn't break out the weights - still a possibility for tonight. Not a likelihood, but at least still a possibility. Blood was 5.3 this morning, for those whose day's not complete without knowing this stuff.
Oh by the way, Pussy-Boy Richman threw up close to the finishing line of the milkshake challenge. Honestly, some people, no staying-power.
"Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored."
(Grabs cricket bat, start whacking people round the head...including himself)
"BORED! BORED! BORED!!! BORED!!! BORED! BORED!! BOOOOOOORED!!!!"
Or, to quote 90s TV space-rat Dave Lister, as played by Craig Charles in Red Dwarf...
"I'm sick of it. Just totally, totally sick of it. I'm sick of you, I'm sick of me....I'm just sick of it..."
Might be getting the feeling I'm in a bit of a trough right now. It's probably not all to do with the pathetic, minimally-important 'gone back up a pound'ness of Tuesday's result. It's everything - it's death and finance, it's work and too-far family, it's the combination of the return of Captain Draino to his rightful place in my life and feeling fat and heavy and powerless and pointless and altogether at my least perky and funny since we started this quest. I feel like I need to grab a baseball bat and head to the batting cage, or rip down our garden fence and pound the bejeesus out of next-door's boxing 'man'. Instead of which, I'm piddling about here, writing words, and watching, of all things, Man Vs Food - a nutcase called Adam Richman eating...well, basically the world. Right now he's eating every gorgeous thing you could ever barbecue the crap out of.
On reflection, it's probably just as well I don't have the baseball bat, right now. Shouldn't be watching this jealous-making fuck...who's just moved on to a fifteen-milkshake 'challenge' (pass them here, ya pussy, I'll chug those beauties right now. Challenge, my ass!). What I should be watching right now is Survivor. Y'know, miserable people starving to death, bitching at each other, running around in horrendous heat, freezing to death every night and having to eat rats to survive...Hell, watch it, I should be on the Survivor Diet right about now...except of course for the fact that I'd probably end up killing and roasting them all on a big-ass spit.
Mmmm....Barbecued Survivor...
OK, clearly need to go away now. Still have to do some cycling tonight. And no, before you ask, didn't break out the weights - still a possibility for tonight. Not a likelihood, but at least still a possibility. Blood was 5.3 this morning, for those whose day's not complete without knowing this stuff.
Oh by the way, Pussy-Boy Richman threw up close to the finishing line of the milkshake challenge. Honestly, some people, no staying-power.
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Pedalling To Stand Still
Feels like I'm standing still today. Blood was 6.2, so relatively high. It occurs to me that I said, back in the day, that I wanted to go swimming. Thing is, I found out the lie of that in Croatia. There was a pool, and one afternoon, I got some time to lie beside it in a T-shirt and shorts. I went out with the intention of slipping off the shirt and dipping in and doing some proper swimming, but when it came to it, I couldn't do it. I was paralysed with self-consciousness, even though it's important to remember this was a pool full of ageing, leathery Croatian man-breasts. Just couldn't do it. So the chances of me doing it in a British public pool, potentially filled with yobbish British teenagers, is practically nil. So I guess I have to be realistic on that. And on the other hand, I have a box of weights that I've never opened. That, I think, needs to change, because I feel in danger of slipping back further next week, and that will really piss me off, to have come so close to the stone barrier, and then be dragged back in a wave of of flusteration.
If anybody's following the fate of Composto, he's been vanquished - this time - by the Dynamic Duo of Captain Draino and GreaseBoy. But he's not gone for good, he's stuck in his Colonic Cave, plotting his revenge, and he'll be back.
Came home tonight, turned the bike up to level 7, and did ten miles. Desperation measure, frankly, to make up for three fairly hefty, gorgeous carby meals today. I'm not about to go down the route of panicky madness that feels guilty about every mouthful retrospectively. I wanted it, I ate it, I enjoyed it, I'm moving on. Instead of that, I'm gonna break out the weights tomorrow (possibly in the morning, if I can screw my head on right that early), to add a new dimension to the regime, and try to push forward, rather than being dragged back by carbohydrate and despondency.
Meanwhile, there's important snoring to be done, so you'll have to excuse me.
If anybody's following the fate of Composto, he's been vanquished - this time - by the Dynamic Duo of Captain Draino and GreaseBoy. But he's not gone for good, he's stuck in his Colonic Cave, plotting his revenge, and he'll be back.
Came home tonight, turned the bike up to level 7, and did ten miles. Desperation measure, frankly, to make up for three fairly hefty, gorgeous carby meals today. I'm not about to go down the route of panicky madness that feels guilty about every mouthful retrospectively. I wanted it, I ate it, I enjoyed it, I'm moving on. Instead of that, I'm gonna break out the weights tomorrow (possibly in the morning, if I can screw my head on right that early), to add a new dimension to the regime, and try to push forward, rather than being dragged back by carbohydrate and despondency.
Meanwhile, there's important snoring to be done, so you'll have to excuse me.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Sliding Scales
Nope, that didn't work either.
So, this is post 101, and since last week I was essentially one big fart away from two important milestones - having lost a stone and a half at 19 st and one half pound, and breaking the 19 stone barrier altogether - I figured this week would be celebratory, and we could have a street party, a bank holiday, and hell, maybe even a four-day weekend...
What, the Queen's so special all of a sudden, she gets to call them, and I can't?! Always said we should be a bloody Republic...
Anyhow, so it was all gonna be singing and dancing and yadda yadda yadda, but as you know, I am currently Composto, the Vegetable-Boy, and nothing, but nothing, seems to help. So after an unsuccessful attempt to...shall we day redistribute...the compost this morning, and with time ticking on, I got on the scales. And it is with an apparently heavy heart that I have to report this morning's result:
19 stone 2.5 pounds - up a pound and a quarter on last week.
This is, incidentally, the first time I've genuinely had to report a weight gain - See? Wretched evil bastard vegetables, they intend us no good at all. As if my own situation wasn't proof enough, it now appears that the e-coli outbreak is probably all down to German beansprouts! See! Subversive beansprouts want to bring us down! Burn the beansprouts! Burn all the beansprouts!! Then oddly enough, on the way into work, I was watching some old Doctor Who on my iPod. The Waters of Mars, one of David Tennant's final stories. And in that story, the Big Bad is a bloke who turns into an evil, acquisitive, water-vomitting viral nightmare...after eating the first carrot ever grown on Mars! See??! It's the Vegetables, man, they can't be trusted....
Ahem...it's possible I'm taking this rather too seriously.
Mind you, it's fascinating what happens to the brain in circumstances like this. I hung around after my weigh-in this morning, just waiting for the spirit of digestive fluidity to move me. Nada. Not a freakin' Quorn sausage. And so...
Have you ever seen Sliding Doors? That movie where, for no terribly good reason, Gwyneth Paltrow suddenly starts living two lives in different what-if scenarios? Well, my day has become like that. In the one, the great screaming drama-queen that is the Disappearing Me hid out till d went off to work and stuffed the scales in his rucksack, and is just waiting for the right moment for the day's 'proper' weigh-in. In that dimension he walked as far as the bus, thought "Oh well, sod it, clearly it's not worth bothering," and got on. In that dimension, if nothing's happened by lunchtime, he might just grab a Snickers bar and be done with it. Although interestingly of course, if something does happen, he actually will get an ego-boosting result, and won't have to live with the first official weight-gain in
Meanwhile in this dimension, the less-rampantly histrionic me is thinking "Well, yeah, it sucks, but it's a pound and a quarter, and we know that at least some of that is compost, so while the result is official, let's get a grip here. This me didn't get the bus, and this me would dearly love to get a Snickers bar right now, but isn't going to. Because this dimension's me is keeping track of the fact that really, he doesn't know he's born, compared to half the people in his life right now, how have real dramas!
Each dimension has its own soundtrack too - the drama-queen dimension is tuned to Leonard Cohen this morning, all self-important self-pity and ponderous rhythm, while the realistic dimension is soundtracked by Denis Leary, and is upbeat and moving on.
So a sucky result for Composto today, but on we absolutely have to and absolutely will be going...
Oh and the blood was 5.5 this morning. Clearly it's turning into mulch...
So, this is post 101, and since last week I was essentially one big fart away from two important milestones - having lost a stone and a half at 19 st and one half pound, and breaking the 19 stone barrier altogether - I figured this week would be celebratory, and we could have a street party, a bank holiday, and hell, maybe even a four-day weekend...
What, the Queen's so special all of a sudden, she gets to call them, and I can't?! Always said we should be a bloody Republic...
Anyhow, so it was all gonna be singing and dancing and yadda yadda yadda, but as you know, I am currently Composto, the Vegetable-Boy, and nothing, but nothing, seems to help. So after an unsuccessful attempt to...shall we day redistribute...the compost this morning, and with time ticking on, I got on the scales. And it is with an apparently heavy heart that I have to report this morning's result:
19 stone 2.5 pounds - up a pound and a quarter on last week.
This is, incidentally, the first time I've genuinely had to report a weight gain - See? Wretched evil bastard vegetables, they intend us no good at all. As if my own situation wasn't proof enough, it now appears that the e-coli outbreak is probably all down to German beansprouts! See! Subversive beansprouts want to bring us down! Burn the beansprouts! Burn all the beansprouts!! Then oddly enough, on the way into work, I was watching some old Doctor Who on my iPod. The Waters of Mars, one of David Tennant's final stories. And in that story, the Big Bad is a bloke who turns into an evil, acquisitive, water-vomitting viral nightmare...after eating the first carrot ever grown on Mars! See??! It's the Vegetables, man, they can't be trusted....
Ahem...it's possible I'm taking this rather too seriously.
Mind you, it's fascinating what happens to the brain in circumstances like this. I hung around after my weigh-in this morning, just waiting for the spirit of digestive fluidity to move me. Nada. Not a freakin' Quorn sausage. And so...
Have you ever seen Sliding Doors? That movie where, for no terribly good reason, Gwyneth Paltrow suddenly starts living two lives in different what-if scenarios? Well, my day has become like that. In the one, the great screaming drama-queen that is the Disappearing Me hid out till d went off to work and stuffed the scales in his rucksack, and is just waiting for the right moment for the day's 'proper' weigh-in. In that dimension he walked as far as the bus, thought "Oh well, sod it, clearly it's not worth bothering," and got on. In that dimension, if nothing's happened by lunchtime, he might just grab a Snickers bar and be done with it. Although interestingly of course, if something does happen, he actually will get an ego-boosting result, and won't have to live with the first official weight-gain in
Meanwhile in this dimension, the less-rampantly histrionic me is thinking "Well, yeah, it sucks, but it's a pound and a quarter, and we know that at least some of that is compost, so while the result is official, let's get a grip here. This me didn't get the bus, and this me would dearly love to get a Snickers bar right now, but isn't going to. Because this dimension's me is keeping track of the fact that really, he doesn't know he's born, compared to half the people in his life right now, how have real dramas!
Each dimension has its own soundtrack too - the drama-queen dimension is tuned to Leonard Cohen this morning, all self-important self-pity and ponderous rhythm, while the realistic dimension is soundtracked by Denis Leary, and is upbeat and moving on.
So a sucky result for Composto today, but on we absolutely have to and absolutely will be going...
Oh and the blood was 5.5 this morning. Clearly it's turning into mulch...
Monday, 6 June 2011
I Am Compost-Boy!
Every carried a rotting compost heap around a city with you?
I have. For I am Compost-Boy, a super-villainous combination of human and steamy vegetable matter.
I've been eating salads since Friday. Since then, salads have become globally hazardous, we've lost a beloved family member, and the universe has flipped on its axis and started bitchslapping us with mom-death references.
What no-one thought about when I jumped suddenly into the world of fresh vegetation was the fact that basically, there's nothing to salads. Since starting this project, and particularly since the delight that is Xenical entered my life, it would be fair to say that I've never been short of...erm...bathroom action.
Until now. Since experiencing the wonder of salads, I've been bloated and farty pretty much constantly, but the Xenical has mostly been ignoring me because there appears to be no fat in any damn salads (Note to self - could this be why people schmear all kinds of dressings and crap all over them? Hmm...). So I feel like I'm growing, getting fatter not with blubber, but with marsh gas and a rotting compost heap sitting, growing in my colon.
So...that bodes well for tomorrow, no?
In fact, by this morning, d was telling me to get a sausage sandwich for breakfast, just to get some grease into my system and get some colonic irrigation going.
Nope, that didn't work either. Compost-Boy repels the grease of mortal sausages!!
So this evening, I'm taking a drug I swore I'd never take - the drug of 'ladies who lunch' - a stool softener, in an increasingly desperate attempt not to carry the compost to the weigh-in tomorrow. Because I'm getting that sad and obsessed - if I don't get rid of the compost before getting on the scales tomorrow, I won't, in the inner heart of me, really accept its verdict. I'll be full of whinging and bitching that "Yeah, but that's because..."
I know, I know...no-one signed on for this much information. Sorry, but I swore I'd tell the truth about this process, and saladacious constipation sucks all kinds of ass...Or not, clearly.
Incidentally, the blood was 5.0 this morning, which is pretty much perfect.
Perfect for a human compost heap...
I have. For I am Compost-Boy, a super-villainous combination of human and steamy vegetable matter.
I've been eating salads since Friday. Since then, salads have become globally hazardous, we've lost a beloved family member, and the universe has flipped on its axis and started bitchslapping us with mom-death references.
What no-one thought about when I jumped suddenly into the world of fresh vegetation was the fact that basically, there's nothing to salads. Since starting this project, and particularly since the delight that is Xenical entered my life, it would be fair to say that I've never been short of...erm...bathroom action.
Until now. Since experiencing the wonder of salads, I've been bloated and farty pretty much constantly, but the Xenical has mostly been ignoring me because there appears to be no fat in any damn salads (Note to self - could this be why people schmear all kinds of dressings and crap all over them? Hmm...). So I feel like I'm growing, getting fatter not with blubber, but with marsh gas and a rotting compost heap sitting, growing in my colon.
So...that bodes well for tomorrow, no?
In fact, by this morning, d was telling me to get a sausage sandwich for breakfast, just to get some grease into my system and get some colonic irrigation going.
Nope, that didn't work either. Compost-Boy repels the grease of mortal sausages!!
So this evening, I'm taking a drug I swore I'd never take - the drug of 'ladies who lunch' - a stool softener, in an increasingly desperate attempt not to carry the compost to the weigh-in tomorrow. Because I'm getting that sad and obsessed - if I don't get rid of the compost before getting on the scales tomorrow, I won't, in the inner heart of me, really accept its verdict. I'll be full of whinging and bitching that "Yeah, but that's because..."
I know, I know...no-one signed on for this much information. Sorry, but I swore I'd tell the truth about this process, and saladacious constipation sucks all kinds of ass...Or not, clearly.
Incidentally, the blood was 5.0 this morning, which is pretty much perfect.
Perfect for a human compost heap...
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Ever Fallen In Love...
Y'know how when you fall in love, suddenly every pathetic, nauseating pointless little pop song becomes deep and meaningful, and even years down the line will prick your eyes with sweet tears every time you hear it as it takes you back to that golden time?
Yeah, well I'm here to tell you that the context-engine in the human brain doesn't only work in nice, fun, gooey situations like that.
Yesterday, as you know, we got the news that Rita, d's mom, had passed away. We turned on the TV for some distraction, and found an old favourite - Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That sounded great, cos nothing blows grief out of the water like some high-octane slayage. Yeah, well when you turn on to a random episode and it turns out to be the one where Buffy's mom is suddenly, unexpectedly, stone dead on the couch, that doesn't exactly work. We changed channels and found re-runs of Saturday Night Live from 1976. Madeline Kahn came on and said "Oh, what are we gonna do, in about half an hour it's gonna be Mother's Day..." and then sang a song where every letter int he word MOTHER was "for all the things she gaaaaaaaave me....".
Click.
Friends. Phew. Nothing remotely serious in Friends, right? No, just a long riff on Bambi, and how tragic it was when his mother died!
CLICK!
Annette Crosbie, popular Scottish actress, wandered across the screen, saying how she was getting on, and how, the older you get, the more you start thinking about what you're going to leave behind you when you DIE!
FREAKING CLICK!!!
Desperate Housewives, one of d's favourite TV shows of all times...just happened to be on an episode where Lynette Scavo, pretty much the 'supermom' of the housewives, having a rant to one of her kids about how 'one day, I'm not gonna be here!"
CLICK!
Sleepless in Seattle - nauseating child propelling the story on, whinging endlessly about how he "missed mommy" - yep, another freaking dead mother...
Blip! Time to turn off the TV. I plugged in my iPod and started pedalling. At random, I ended up in a compilation of 'heavy rock' Queen songs - which means I had Keep Yourself Alive, followed by Tie Your Mother Down, followed by Another One Bites The Dust, followed by Dead On Time...I mean seriously? Are you freaking kidding me? Ten miles of songs, and each and every one was unexpectedly meaningful - Guns and Roses? Mama Kin and Paradise City. 60s classics? Only The Lonely and Since I Don't Have You...
Just went back to the TV on day two. Love Actually - one of 'Our' movies, but we turned on to the story of - guess what? - the kid whose mom died, and had "Bye Bye Baby" by the Bay City Rollers (d's favourite band as a kid) at her funeral...oh and incidentally, whose dad in the movie was played by Liam Neeson...who shortly afterwards had his own tragedy when his wife died on a skiing trip!
I think at this point, it's time to put on shades, screw in earplugs and sleep for a fortnight, cos clearly the world of entertainment just hates us right now.
In other news, Day 3, Salad 3, found myself out and about at one point today, thinking "Mmm...salad tonight..."
Seriously, think I might have been replaced by a changeling or a flesh avatar or somesuch thing, cos this just isn't me.
ADDENDUM: 9PM, Sunday - Re-runs of last week's Desperate Housewives. Open with Andrew Van Der Kamp making amends to Carlos Solis...for 'kinda killing his mother...'
QED.
Yeah, well I'm here to tell you that the context-engine in the human brain doesn't only work in nice, fun, gooey situations like that.
Yesterday, as you know, we got the news that Rita, d's mom, had passed away. We turned on the TV for some distraction, and found an old favourite - Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That sounded great, cos nothing blows grief out of the water like some high-octane slayage. Yeah, well when you turn on to a random episode and it turns out to be the one where Buffy's mom is suddenly, unexpectedly, stone dead on the couch, that doesn't exactly work. We changed channels and found re-runs of Saturday Night Live from 1976. Madeline Kahn came on and said "Oh, what are we gonna do, in about half an hour it's gonna be Mother's Day..." and then sang a song where every letter int he word MOTHER was "for all the things she gaaaaaaaave me....".
Click.
Friends. Phew. Nothing remotely serious in Friends, right? No, just a long riff on Bambi, and how tragic it was when his mother died!
CLICK!
Annette Crosbie, popular Scottish actress, wandered across the screen, saying how she was getting on, and how, the older you get, the more you start thinking about what you're going to leave behind you when you DIE!
FREAKING CLICK!!!
Desperate Housewives, one of d's favourite TV shows of all times...just happened to be on an episode where Lynette Scavo, pretty much the 'supermom' of the housewives, having a rant to one of her kids about how 'one day, I'm not gonna be here!"
CLICK!
Sleepless in Seattle - nauseating child propelling the story on, whinging endlessly about how he "missed mommy" - yep, another freaking dead mother...
Blip! Time to turn off the TV. I plugged in my iPod and started pedalling. At random, I ended up in a compilation of 'heavy rock' Queen songs - which means I had Keep Yourself Alive, followed by Tie Your Mother Down, followed by Another One Bites The Dust, followed by Dead On Time...I mean seriously? Are you freaking kidding me? Ten miles of songs, and each and every one was unexpectedly meaningful - Guns and Roses? Mama Kin and Paradise City. 60s classics? Only The Lonely and Since I Don't Have You...
Just went back to the TV on day two. Love Actually - one of 'Our' movies, but we turned on to the story of - guess what? - the kid whose mom died, and had "Bye Bye Baby" by the Bay City Rollers (d's favourite band as a kid) at her funeral...oh and incidentally, whose dad in the movie was played by Liam Neeson...who shortly afterwards had his own tragedy when his wife died on a skiing trip!
I think at this point, it's time to put on shades, screw in earplugs and sleep for a fortnight, cos clearly the world of entertainment just hates us right now.
In other news, Day 3, Salad 3, found myself out and about at one point today, thinking "Mmm...salad tonight..."
Seriously, think I might have been replaced by a changeling or a flesh avatar or somesuch thing, cos this just isn't me.
ADDENDUM: 9PM, Sunday - Re-runs of last week's Desperate Housewives. Open with Andrew Van Der Kamp making amends to Carlos Solis...for 'kinda killing his mother...'
QED.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
A Black-Bordered Day
I woke with a snort this morning, and shuddered, and nothing much made sense. I hadn't drunk last night, why was there a ringing in my head?
The fact that d swung out of bed with an early-morning elegance that still blows my mind convinced me in a blink that the ringing was actually outside my head. Oh, the phone.
It's a truism that good news never wakes you up in the middle of the night.
It was The Call. The Call we've essentially been waiting to hear, and hoping not to hear, for at least five years. Certainly for the last few weeks, since coming back from the States this time.
My mother-in-law, Rita Bova, had passed away.
The Call was relatively kind - they'd had her favourite staff sitting with her as she went to final sleep, and, as we learned later in the day, Larry, d's brother, had had the chance to go and sit with his mom last night, as time ticked out. She'd woken up, and recognised him, and closed her eyes again...
It's funny - she was a more complex human being than most people realised. Most people, you and I included, only knew her in the last handful of her years on the planet, and what you knew if you remember only that was a kind of Miss Marple figure - frail, and elderly, and kind, and very, very gracious. She was also in pain, and more than that, in chronic discomfort, and trying to make sense of the tragedy that had devastated her family and ripped the golden heart out of her life. That was some of who she was - the grace was the legacy of old-fashioned Scarlett O'Hara style Southern gentility, in which tradition, if not in which circumstance, she was raised. The trying to make sense was the product of her strong Catholic faith, which got stronger, not weaker, the more disaster life threw at her. But you had to be with her at just the right moments to find the nuggets of sweet brilliance of the woman - having heard the story of my step-dad's famous nautical ancestors, she looked at me sideways, and a little wry smile played on her lips, and she said "So you're a pirate?" It was a name that stuck, and she always asked after The Pirate after that. Before I knew her, she was already so many things - she'd looked after her own mother for years, and repeated history has her meeting her husband in a local diner where she worked. She raised a family, raised roses, made a life as you do. There's more than that to tell, but to be honest, her story is not really to be told by a Tony-come-lately in a blog about losing weight. It's not in any sense the right place to do her justice, or the right voice to do it in. I miss her already though - there's something about her voice that will resonate with me for the rest of my life, and without her, I would never have met my wife. So I'm thankful for her life, and will miss her in her passing. It is perhaps the simplest mark of her way of living that those who knew her better will miss her more and more.
We spent the day doing what you must when this hits you - talking to undertakers, letting people know, being consoled, holding each other when the consolation, as it must, doesn't quite work. Our friends Lori and Dominic, with whom we stay when in the States, were en route to Minnesota for the graduation of Dom's daughter, Tori. Aurie, Larry's guardian, is en route back from Michigan, the Arcadipanes and hospicefolk are on the case (though we were sad to learn that Josie Arcadipane has had another heart attack since we left). We went to our local Catholic church this afternoon - an interesting experience for this atheist, mingling everything that might be claimed of a church in one moment. The priest was keen to find out if we were Catholics, and if so, why he hadn't seen us at Mass, and whether we had children and the like, but still, he offered condolence and consolation to my girl when most she needed it. So this atheist has nothing to say. Yeah, you can say this is how the mainstream churches play and win their converts at their most vulnerable, and I probably wouldn't argue with you, but the point is, when people are most vulnerable is precisely when they give, and what they give may not be true, but it is indisputably valuable in those moments. As an aside, en route to the church, we passed the usual band of shouty, you're-all-going-to-Hell street preachers, and this, surely, is the difference. These people offer nothing but punishment if you don't believe/obey them, and some putative joy if you do. Our quiet, vaguely acquisitive priest on the other hand, like many faithful people, offered to put himself between a human being and their pain. For that at least, I'm happy to salute him and his kind.
This evening was slower, less immediate and dramatic. There was Who, there was - oh yeah, did I mention - another salad (iceberg and carrot tonight), there was a moderately unfortunate Xenical incident and some associated laundry. And, so far, there have been seven miles of cycling. There's about to be another unfortunate Xenicalling, and more miles of mindless pedalling, before we try and find some sleep in a world without one of its more gracious pillars. Good luck is a weird concept of course, but we'll happily take any wishes for it as we try to move from today to tomorrow...
The fact that d swung out of bed with an early-morning elegance that still blows my mind convinced me in a blink that the ringing was actually outside my head. Oh, the phone.
It's a truism that good news never wakes you up in the middle of the night.
It was The Call. The Call we've essentially been waiting to hear, and hoping not to hear, for at least five years. Certainly for the last few weeks, since coming back from the States this time.
My mother-in-law, Rita Bova, had passed away.
The Call was relatively kind - they'd had her favourite staff sitting with her as she went to final sleep, and, as we learned later in the day, Larry, d's brother, had had the chance to go and sit with his mom last night, as time ticked out. She'd woken up, and recognised him, and closed her eyes again...
It's funny - she was a more complex human being than most people realised. Most people, you and I included, only knew her in the last handful of her years on the planet, and what you knew if you remember only that was a kind of Miss Marple figure - frail, and elderly, and kind, and very, very gracious. She was also in pain, and more than that, in chronic discomfort, and trying to make sense of the tragedy that had devastated her family and ripped the golden heart out of her life. That was some of who she was - the grace was the legacy of old-fashioned Scarlett O'Hara style Southern gentility, in which tradition, if not in which circumstance, she was raised. The trying to make sense was the product of her strong Catholic faith, which got stronger, not weaker, the more disaster life threw at her. But you had to be with her at just the right moments to find the nuggets of sweet brilliance of the woman - having heard the story of my step-dad's famous nautical ancestors, she looked at me sideways, and a little wry smile played on her lips, and she said "So you're a pirate?" It was a name that stuck, and she always asked after The Pirate after that. Before I knew her, she was already so many things - she'd looked after her own mother for years, and repeated history has her meeting her husband in a local diner where she worked. She raised a family, raised roses, made a life as you do. There's more than that to tell, but to be honest, her story is not really to be told by a Tony-come-lately in a blog about losing weight. It's not in any sense the right place to do her justice, or the right voice to do it in. I miss her already though - there's something about her voice that will resonate with me for the rest of my life, and without her, I would never have met my wife. So I'm thankful for her life, and will miss her in her passing. It is perhaps the simplest mark of her way of living that those who knew her better will miss her more and more.
We spent the day doing what you must when this hits you - talking to undertakers, letting people know, being consoled, holding each other when the consolation, as it must, doesn't quite work. Our friends Lori and Dominic, with whom we stay when in the States, were en route to Minnesota for the graduation of Dom's daughter, Tori. Aurie, Larry's guardian, is en route back from Michigan, the Arcadipanes and hospicefolk are on the case (though we were sad to learn that Josie Arcadipane has had another heart attack since we left). We went to our local Catholic church this afternoon - an interesting experience for this atheist, mingling everything that might be claimed of a church in one moment. The priest was keen to find out if we were Catholics, and if so, why he hadn't seen us at Mass, and whether we had children and the like, but still, he offered condolence and consolation to my girl when most she needed it. So this atheist has nothing to say. Yeah, you can say this is how the mainstream churches play and win their converts at their most vulnerable, and I probably wouldn't argue with you, but the point is, when people are most vulnerable is precisely when they give, and what they give may not be true, but it is indisputably valuable in those moments. As an aside, en route to the church, we passed the usual band of shouty, you're-all-going-to-Hell street preachers, and this, surely, is the difference. These people offer nothing but punishment if you don't believe/obey them, and some putative joy if you do. Our quiet, vaguely acquisitive priest on the other hand, like many faithful people, offered to put himself between a human being and their pain. For that at least, I'm happy to salute him and his kind.
This evening was slower, less immediate and dramatic. There was Who, there was - oh yeah, did I mention - another salad (iceberg and carrot tonight), there was a moderately unfortunate Xenical incident and some associated laundry. And, so far, there have been seven miles of cycling. There's about to be another unfortunate Xenicalling, and more miles of mindless pedalling, before we try and find some sleep in a world without one of its more gracious pillars. Good luck is a weird concept of course, but we'll happily take any wishes for it as we try to move from today to tomorrow...
Friday, 3 June 2011
Salad Days
Point 1: My name is Tony, and I really don't know who I am any more.
Point 2: This is probably a good thing.
It's a Friday, so there's not much that can be wrong with the day. Had blood sugar of 6.2 this morning, which was irritating. The day went on in a similar vein, tiny little gritty things that stuck in my craw or got under my skin, so it was a great thing to be able to call d and arrange to meet for a weekend-starting dinner at one of our regular Italian haunts in the city.
From the minute I walked in, it was the weekend. This is what my girl, and Friday night, and Italian food can do for me. Thankfully, far as I may have come from who I used to be, that's still the case, and will always be.
Now, you have to watch this carefully, it's kind of like a game of Watch The Lady.
And yes, before you ask, The Lady would be me.
If you've been keeping up, you'll know that I'm not a fan of fresh, raw green things. Normally when we go to this particular restaurant, we start with a melted ball of mozarella in a tomato sauce, and move on to something pasta-based.
I don't know who it was that looked down the menu tonight, but it wasn't the man who started this adventure. Because the words that came out of my mouth were:
"I'll have the Italian salad."
Yeah. Quite. I don't know, alright?
The thing is, the Italian salad was described as mozarella, prosciutto, bread, and vine tomatoes. Technically, not a thing on there I don't like. And no green. It was only after I'd ordered it, and d was goggling at me that I explained this. There was no green in this salad.
"Errr...no dear, it doesn't work like that. All those things will be..." she shrugged "in the salad. But it's still a salad..."
"Seriously?"
"Yes dear. That you don't know this is pretty scary."
"Hey," I said, "so shoot me - I see a list of ingredients, I think that's what's in a dish, and that's all that's in the dish."
She blinked, shook her head slowly.
"No dear."
Still, since it was the first salad I'd ever ordered in 39 years of being alive, she felt it was worth encouraging.
"Look, if it's a disaster, you can swap with me. And what you do is pick through all the green to find all the stuff you like."
Something about the way she said that was like coming to the edge of a big dark swimming pool. Queasy and scary and odd. But I kinda like queasy and scary and odd from time to time. I shrugged.
"Nah, I'm gonna eat it," I said.
d did a second double-take.
"Who are you and what have you done with my husband?" she asked.
"I have absolutely no idea," I told her honestly.
When it turned up, there was less green than she'd expected, but still, it was an integral part of the dish, and I ate it all. Apparently, there was spinach and rocket, and something else that was whitish and unidentifiable. This, I have to admit, is one of the great things about going to dinner with a foodie - I wouldn't know spinach from a sunflower, frankly, but now I know what they look like, and taste like, and want to go on to conquer other things - maybe something big and cold and bright and green and limp and utterly British - Y'know...lettuce and so on...
So this is me, the Disappearing Man - I no longer drink fizzy drinks, I don't eat desserts, I don't eat fried potatoes, I now drink de-caff at the drop of a hat, and now...I eat salads.
Yeah, so sue me, I have no culinary principles left in the world. Of course, it's not lost on me that I've come to salads at precisely the moment when salads are pretty much Suspect 1 in Europe's next big food scare - I watched the news earlier and a scientist mentioned that salads had been 'implicated' in our spanking new E-Coli scare. So maybe I can still own testicles if I treat this as an extreme culinary sport - see, that's how hard I am, I've never eaten salads in my life, but now every mouthful of rocket is like playing Russian Roulette with rampant food death, yeeeeahhhh! Bring it on, beeeatch!!
Ahem...Yeah...right...I'll be over here in the pink Bo Peep outfit if anyone wants me...
Point 2: This is probably a good thing.
It's a Friday, so there's not much that can be wrong with the day. Had blood sugar of 6.2 this morning, which was irritating. The day went on in a similar vein, tiny little gritty things that stuck in my craw or got under my skin, so it was a great thing to be able to call d and arrange to meet for a weekend-starting dinner at one of our regular Italian haunts in the city.
From the minute I walked in, it was the weekend. This is what my girl, and Friday night, and Italian food can do for me. Thankfully, far as I may have come from who I used to be, that's still the case, and will always be.
Now, you have to watch this carefully, it's kind of like a game of Watch The Lady.
And yes, before you ask, The Lady would be me.
If you've been keeping up, you'll know that I'm not a fan of fresh, raw green things. Normally when we go to this particular restaurant, we start with a melted ball of mozarella in a tomato sauce, and move on to something pasta-based.
I don't know who it was that looked down the menu tonight, but it wasn't the man who started this adventure. Because the words that came out of my mouth were:
"I'll have the Italian salad."
Yeah. Quite. I don't know, alright?
The thing is, the Italian salad was described as mozarella, prosciutto, bread, and vine tomatoes. Technically, not a thing on there I don't like. And no green. It was only after I'd ordered it, and d was goggling at me that I explained this. There was no green in this salad.
"Errr...no dear, it doesn't work like that. All those things will be..." she shrugged "in the salad. But it's still a salad..."
"Seriously?"
"Yes dear. That you don't know this is pretty scary."
"Hey," I said, "so shoot me - I see a list of ingredients, I think that's what's in a dish, and that's all that's in the dish."
She blinked, shook her head slowly.
"No dear."
Still, since it was the first salad I'd ever ordered in 39 years of being alive, she felt it was worth encouraging.
"Look, if it's a disaster, you can swap with me. And what you do is pick through all the green to find all the stuff you like."
Something about the way she said that was like coming to the edge of a big dark swimming pool. Queasy and scary and odd. But I kinda like queasy and scary and odd from time to time. I shrugged.
"Nah, I'm gonna eat it," I said.
d did a second double-take.
"Who are you and what have you done with my husband?" she asked.
"I have absolutely no idea," I told her honestly.
When it turned up, there was less green than she'd expected, but still, it was an integral part of the dish, and I ate it all. Apparently, there was spinach and rocket, and something else that was whitish and unidentifiable. This, I have to admit, is one of the great things about going to dinner with a foodie - I wouldn't know spinach from a sunflower, frankly, but now I know what they look like, and taste like, and want to go on to conquer other things - maybe something big and cold and bright and green and limp and utterly British - Y'know...lettuce and so on...
So this is me, the Disappearing Man - I no longer drink fizzy drinks, I don't eat desserts, I don't eat fried potatoes, I now drink de-caff at the drop of a hat, and now...I eat salads.
Yeah, so sue me, I have no culinary principles left in the world. Of course, it's not lost on me that I've come to salads at precisely the moment when salads are pretty much Suspect 1 in Europe's next big food scare - I watched the news earlier and a scientist mentioned that salads had been 'implicated' in our spanking new E-Coli scare. So maybe I can still own testicles if I treat this as an extreme culinary sport - see, that's how hard I am, I've never eaten salads in my life, but now every mouthful of rocket is like playing Russian Roulette with rampant food death, yeeeeahhhh! Bring it on, beeeatch!!
Ahem...Yeah...right...I'll be over here in the pink Bo Peep outfit if anyone wants me...
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Booooorn To Be Wiiiiiiilllld
It's BACK, baby!
Blood was all of a whopping 7.0 this morning - note to self and other Disappearing fat fucks - don't have cereal and buttered toast for dinner, then go shortly to bed. The bicycle repair men were scheduled to be here by 'late morning', so when they rang at 10.30 and said "Reparing a recumbent bike?" I said "Oh yes." There was a sigh on the line. "Well can you let us in then please?" said Repair Man #1. I ran to the door, opened up, offered them tea, coffee, the heart of my first-born if they'd fix my bike. They got straight down to business, explaining their weird introduction. Apparently, they'd just come from delivering a bike to a woman at the top floor of a Canary Wharf appartment block, who hadn't let them use the lift, and had been 'too busy' to come down. They'd left it with the porter at the door, and being lads from up north, and in at least one case, ex-army, they'd felt rather at a loss at such pomposity, so when they were standing outside our door confronted with three doorbells, they'd thought "oh sod it," and just called me. They took the side off the bike, and I saw why it clunked and wheezed and basically fell over every time I tried to change resistance. They changed, replaced, greased, loosened, replaced the side and tested it. Not only does the bike now sweetly do what is asked of it, there's no clunking, no whining, no grinding, no nothing. As an extra added bonus, the seat changing handle, which, according to Repair Man #1 had been incorrectly fitted orignally by "a bunch of numpties", was re-fitted properly, so now the seat whizzes along like a whizzy thing covered in extra whizzy stickers from Whizzer magazine...
When the repair men left I saw them out, was closing the door, and then opened it again when I heard the swearing.
Appearently, the half an hour they'd been tinkering with my bike had been enough to allow a traffic warden to wander along and slap them with a ticket. Apparently, their company don't pay those for them, they have to pay their own. And, like I said, these are northen guys, so being slapped with a stonking great £130 fine, as Repair Man #1 put it, was "today's fucking wages gone".
Given they weren't having a good day by the time they got to me, I can only imagine what they were like to their next call, bless 'em. Hell, maybe they thought "fuck it," and sodded off back up the M6...
Now, other than to test it out, I haven't actually gotten ON the bike yet - that's coming up as soon as I stop talking to you. And the day has been relatively stodgy - cereal breakfast (cos God forbid I should learn the lesson of last night), and a pepperoni pizza - thin and crispy, but still...
So check me out - fat man on a thoroughly repaired bike, comin' through...
Get your motor ruuuunnnin'...
Blood was all of a whopping 7.0 this morning - note to self and other Disappearing fat fucks - don't have cereal and buttered toast for dinner, then go shortly to bed. The bicycle repair men were scheduled to be here by 'late morning', so when they rang at 10.30 and said "Reparing a recumbent bike?" I said "Oh yes." There was a sigh on the line. "Well can you let us in then please?" said Repair Man #1. I ran to the door, opened up, offered them tea, coffee, the heart of my first-born if they'd fix my bike. They got straight down to business, explaining their weird introduction. Apparently, they'd just come from delivering a bike to a woman at the top floor of a Canary Wharf appartment block, who hadn't let them use the lift, and had been 'too busy' to come down. They'd left it with the porter at the door, and being lads from up north, and in at least one case, ex-army, they'd felt rather at a loss at such pomposity, so when they were standing outside our door confronted with three doorbells, they'd thought "oh sod it," and just called me. They took the side off the bike, and I saw why it clunked and wheezed and basically fell over every time I tried to change resistance. They changed, replaced, greased, loosened, replaced the side and tested it. Not only does the bike now sweetly do what is asked of it, there's no clunking, no whining, no grinding, no nothing. As an extra added bonus, the seat changing handle, which, according to Repair Man #1 had been incorrectly fitted orignally by "a bunch of numpties", was re-fitted properly, so now the seat whizzes along like a whizzy thing covered in extra whizzy stickers from Whizzer magazine...
When the repair men left I saw them out, was closing the door, and then opened it again when I heard the swearing.
Appearently, the half an hour they'd been tinkering with my bike had been enough to allow a traffic warden to wander along and slap them with a ticket. Apparently, their company don't pay those for them, they have to pay their own. And, like I said, these are northen guys, so being slapped with a stonking great £130 fine, as Repair Man #1 put it, was "today's fucking wages gone".
Given they weren't having a good day by the time they got to me, I can only imagine what they were like to their next call, bless 'em. Hell, maybe they thought "fuck it," and sodded off back up the M6...
Now, other than to test it out, I haven't actually gotten ON the bike yet - that's coming up as soon as I stop talking to you. And the day has been relatively stodgy - cereal breakfast (cos God forbid I should learn the lesson of last night), and a pepperoni pizza - thin and crispy, but still...
So check me out - fat man on a thoroughly repaired bike, comin' through...
Get your motor ruuuunnnin'...
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
The Tooth, The Whole Tooth, and Nothing But the Tooth
Q: When is an emergency not an emergency?
A: When you're waiting for payday and searching for a dentist in Britain.
Got home last night at about 7.45. By about 7.50, d was in the bathroom, saying "Well, that's not good..."
In her hand, there was a sliver of tooth. Quite a large sliver in fact. Apparently, she'd been making an American speciality called Rice-a-Roni, and a piece of pasta had been al dente. Al dente with knuckledusters and spiked boots, in fact. The whole back half of one of her front teeth had come away. We headed up to the 'emergency walk-in centre' which happens to be on our street. They wouldn't let us in at first.
"We close at 8," they said.
"It's five-to," we pointed out.
"Fine," they sniffed, letting us through the double-doors.
We waited our turn, and finally made our way to the Receptionist.
"We close at 8," she said.
"It's not 8," we said.
"We've got no more appointments left," she countered.
"We don't want an appointment," we said. "We need an emergency dentist."
"Ooooh-hoohoohoo..." the Receptionist chuckled, with an air of "Oh, look at this pair. Emergency dentist, no less. And can we get you a solid gold paracetamol capsule while you're at it, Your Highness..."
"There's one in Whitechapel," she said, once she'd stopped patronising us.
"Right," we said.
"But they close at 8 o'clock," she sniffed.
"Sooo..." we said.
"Call NHS Direct," she said. My phone had been dying when I came home. It was on charge in our bedroom.
"No phone," I said. She wrote the number down and handed it to me.
"Can we call from here?" I said, almost classically setting her up.
"No," she said. "We close at 8."
Welcome to the caring, sharing NHS. We went home, and searched the net.
Q: When is an emergency always an emergency?
A: When you can pay through the bleeding gums on the private market.
There was a private dentist on Baker Street, where we ended up at 10 o'clock. They charged us £80 for a consultation and an x-ray. Apparently, d was gonna need a root canal and a cap. That'd be about £1000 please, in a couple of installments, none of your socialist payment plans thank you very much. We nearly had a panic attack...which, given we were in a dentists, was pretty much appropriate. d said she wasn't actually in pain, so we crawled home, thinking about which bank had the slackest security, or the easiest computers to hack.
NHS Direct, in between the grim couldn't-give-a-fuckness of the NHS and the expensive disdainful availability of the private sector, had told us more about the Whitechapel clinic. Apparently, Whitechapel has joined the Eastern Bloc, twenty years after the rest of the world finally said "Oh do me a fucking favour" and embraced the wonders of capitalism.
We were told the emergency dentist opened at 6.30, and would probably only serve ten people. d left work at 3.30, and was first in line. I arrived three hours later, and things were just on the cusp of camaraderie and gang violence. There were 20-odd people in line, in front of whom I barged to be with d. A growl rippled back through the line, and d introduced me. A rumble of "Alright, but watch it..." purred back. 6.45 came and went. A brief chant of "What the Hell, this is ridiculous" was taken up, causing security in what looked like bullet-proof vests to mill around nervously just inside the sealed doors. Finally, on or around the stroke, a receptionist came and told us that only 15 of us, maximum, would be seen, so the rest of us would have to take a phone number and, pretty much, sod off home to writhe in abscessed agonies for (presumably) another night. We went in, and, following a bit of a scuffle where a couple of women had to be ordered out because apparently one of them had stolen the place of another, d went in. She was scraped, and drilled and numbed and filled. That'll be just £17 thanks...
Soooo you have the British healthcare system in two days of bizarre experience. The service you'd ideally like is available, at bankrupting prices. The service you'd get in East Berlin in the 80s is available...but you have to queue for it for three hours, and fend off all other comers. Anything inbetween...good luck with that.
In Disappearing Man terms, today has been weirdly newsless. My wedding ring is starting to slip off, which is ironic as Hell because I had to get it seriously enlarged as I got fatter and fatter, and if this keeps up, I'll have to have it reduced again. But above all, there's been a feeling of alrightness about today - a feeling of 'this is who I am now,' feeling a lot better in my clothes, and pretty much uniting the Falstaff and the Disappearing into something that is just ultimately Me. Where that came from, I have no idea. Anyhow, good day, foodwise. Blood was 5.9 this morning too, so pretty much OK.
Tomorrow, the bicycle repair men turn up...which is just as well, as I think I've given myself another sonofabitch blister from two whole days of walking...So let's get on our bikes and ride!
A: When you're waiting for payday and searching for a dentist in Britain.
Got home last night at about 7.45. By about 7.50, d was in the bathroom, saying "Well, that's not good..."
In her hand, there was a sliver of tooth. Quite a large sliver in fact. Apparently, she'd been making an American speciality called Rice-a-Roni, and a piece of pasta had been al dente. Al dente with knuckledusters and spiked boots, in fact. The whole back half of one of her front teeth had come away. We headed up to the 'emergency walk-in centre' which happens to be on our street. They wouldn't let us in at first.
"We close at 8," they said.
"It's five-to," we pointed out.
"Fine," they sniffed, letting us through the double-doors.
We waited our turn, and finally made our way to the Receptionist.
"We close at 8," she said.
"It's not 8," we said.
"We've got no more appointments left," she countered.
"We don't want an appointment," we said. "We need an emergency dentist."
"Ooooh-hoohoohoo..." the Receptionist chuckled, with an air of "Oh, look at this pair. Emergency dentist, no less. And can we get you a solid gold paracetamol capsule while you're at it, Your Highness..."
"There's one in Whitechapel," she said, once she'd stopped patronising us.
"Right," we said.
"But they close at 8 o'clock," she sniffed.
"Sooo..." we said.
"Call NHS Direct," she said. My phone had been dying when I came home. It was on charge in our bedroom.
"No phone," I said. She wrote the number down and handed it to me.
"Can we call from here?" I said, almost classically setting her up.
"No," she said. "We close at 8."
Welcome to the caring, sharing NHS. We went home, and searched the net.
Q: When is an emergency always an emergency?
A: When you can pay through the bleeding gums on the private market.
There was a private dentist on Baker Street, where we ended up at 10 o'clock. They charged us £80 for a consultation and an x-ray. Apparently, d was gonna need a root canal and a cap. That'd be about £1000 please, in a couple of installments, none of your socialist payment plans thank you very much. We nearly had a panic attack...which, given we were in a dentists, was pretty much appropriate. d said she wasn't actually in pain, so we crawled home, thinking about which bank had the slackest security, or the easiest computers to hack.
NHS Direct, in between the grim couldn't-give-a-fuckness of the NHS and the expensive disdainful availability of the private sector, had told us more about the Whitechapel clinic. Apparently, Whitechapel has joined the Eastern Bloc, twenty years after the rest of the world finally said "Oh do me a fucking favour" and embraced the wonders of capitalism.
We were told the emergency dentist opened at 6.30, and would probably only serve ten people. d left work at 3.30, and was first in line. I arrived three hours later, and things were just on the cusp of camaraderie and gang violence. There were 20-odd people in line, in front of whom I barged to be with d. A growl rippled back through the line, and d introduced me. A rumble of "Alright, but watch it..." purred back. 6.45 came and went. A brief chant of "What the Hell, this is ridiculous" was taken up, causing security in what looked like bullet-proof vests to mill around nervously just inside the sealed doors. Finally, on or around the stroke, a receptionist came and told us that only 15 of us, maximum, would be seen, so the rest of us would have to take a phone number and, pretty much, sod off home to writhe in abscessed agonies for (presumably) another night. We went in, and, following a bit of a scuffle where a couple of women had to be ordered out because apparently one of them had stolen the place of another, d went in. She was scraped, and drilled and numbed and filled. That'll be just £17 thanks...
Soooo you have the British healthcare system in two days of bizarre experience. The service you'd ideally like is available, at bankrupting prices. The service you'd get in East Berlin in the 80s is available...but you have to queue for it for three hours, and fend off all other comers. Anything inbetween...good luck with that.
In Disappearing Man terms, today has been weirdly newsless. My wedding ring is starting to slip off, which is ironic as Hell because I had to get it seriously enlarged as I got fatter and fatter, and if this keeps up, I'll have to have it reduced again. But above all, there's been a feeling of alrightness about today - a feeling of 'this is who I am now,' feeling a lot better in my clothes, and pretty much uniting the Falstaff and the Disappearing into something that is just ultimately Me. Where that came from, I have no idea. Anyhow, good day, foodwise. Blood was 5.9 this morning too, so pretty much OK.
Tomorrow, the bicycle repair men turn up...which is just as well, as I think I've given myself another sonofabitch blister from two whole days of walking...So let's get on our bikes and ride!
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