Thursday, 21 February 2013

The Logical Inversion



I’ll share a little secret with you. I determined last night that today, I was gonna buy each of the new “Limited Edition” Kit-Kats, and eat them on the way to Southampton. And a bag of Mini-Eggs, dammit.
The idea had fixed itself in my head that I was gonna be stuck putting on weight like a blimp while this ear infection gave me vertigo and seasickness that prevented me from walking any great distance without feeling queasy, or staying upright on any piece of equipment worth the name. Figured I must be back to about 18 stone, having had a week of this already, so fuck it! I might as well enjoy some sensations from being that weight, right?!

Got on the scales this morning, for an unofficial weigh-in. They said 17st 7. There are two factors to take into account here. Firstly, I never do an official weigh-in before my morning “constitutional” – or bathroom visit. And secondly in recent weeks, most of the official weigh-ins (though notably not the last one) have been conducted after doing some hard exercise…which experience tells me knocks a pound and a half off the reading. This morning’s reading was before any constitutional, and beyond the reach of any exercise. 

So…damn. I’ve actually lost weight this week. I mentioned this to d, who, bless her, is a raging ball of snot and flu right now.

“Well, d’uh,” she said, sniffing heavily. “I’b sick. I habben’t been cooki’g. Tryi’g to kill you ebbery night…”
Pshwar, stuff and nonsense, I wanted to tell her. Then I started thinking about it, and while I don’t hold her responsible in any way, there’s a certain logic to it – we’ve both been feeling so wretched that we haven’t generally felt like an evening meal this last week. Hmm…

The thing is, here’s where the logic flips – if I’d BEEN 18 stone, I would have gone ahead and had a chocolatefest this morning. But since things were actually moving in my favour, I decided not to. Chance to make some actual progress here, I thought. As Shakespeare’s Richard III says – “Since I am crept in favour with myself, I shall maintain it, to some little cost…”. As accurately cynical buggers have been saying for a century, you gotta have money to make money. So in this game, it appears you gotta have progress to make progress. Nevertheless the oddness of the logical inversion struck me as worthy or reporting: when things go to hell, and when we most need to redouble our efforts, it’s when we’re most inclined to shoot things right along the fast track to oblivion. When we get the tiniest crumb of encouragement, it’s all hands to the pumps and haloes all round.

Today was generally pretty good. Had a Starbucks at Cardiff, then didn’t feel the need to eat or drink anything else all day, as I knew I was meeting Sian in Portsmouth for dinner. Had a Chinese buffet, and a good one too, and with reasonable guiltlessness, had three smallish plates of assorted food. Didn’t go overboard, particularly, but didn’t stint myself either, figuring my system needed something in it to feed on. As I write this, we ate something like six hours ago, so hopefully, it should be through my system by the morning, and were there a scales in this hotel, I’d weigh-in just out of curiosity, though of course it wouldn’t be official because they wouldn’t be my scales.

Texted Sian on the way back to Southampton, saying it was good to see her, and she was starting to look more like herself again than she’s done for a while.
“Thanks,” she said. “Good to see you too. Can tell you’re starting to Disappear again…”
Dammit…
Really wanted those Kit-Kats and Mini-Eggs!
Ah well…onward to glory, I suppose…

No comments:

Post a Comment