The Becalming Buoyancy

Yep – as predicted, absolutely static for this week’s weigh-in – 18st 1.

That said, I’ve barely walked worth a damn in the last seven days, and though I’ve been semi-regular in terms of walking, that’s been about the only element of my discipline that’s been even close to regular.

Clearly, a tightening of the regime is needed to push me on down into the 17s, as currently, I keep bobbing back up like a round, bald chunk of cork on an ocean of numbers.

Tomorrow sees the return of the incomparable joyfest that is an UberCommute, heading to London and back in a day, with a long meeting inbetween, and Thursday, I’m in training all day, just spitting distance away from my usual Starbucks – am sensing a cheeky decaff or two come lunchtime. But by the end of that day, two important deadlines will have been met and passed, one more will loom massively, but it will allow a greater clarity and a greater Disappearing discipline – less in the way of hiding at Starbucks for long days, more in the way or early morning walking, evening biking, perhaps even a little gym work to begin to capitalise on what d calls ‘the Disappearing Moobs.’

Seeing 18 again was a moment of great joy for me, having not seen it previously for long, mad, out of control months. 18 as a region has been unexpectedly exciting, given that it’s still significantly massive. But I’m done with the excitement now; I want a new thrill. Currently, just 1.25 pounds stand between me and that new thrill of the 17s. Time to refocus, double down and head to the future I want to see.

The Food/Porn Binomial

Food with a view...

Unff.
Bank Holiday Monday, thou art an enemy to the Disappearing Man.

Cool day, though, to be fair. Starbucks, shedloads of work done (almost 200 pages of proofreading, and counting), and meeting d for a Cardiff lunch.

Did I overeat this lunchtime? Oh hellyeah.
Was there even a dessert involved? Yes, there was. Again with the Aristotelian Fuck-You.
Should either of these things have happened the day before a weigh-in? Nah, probably not.
Am I going to wail and bitch about it? Nah. Will undoubtedly find other things to wail and bitch about instead.
Do I feel like I ever want to eat again? Noooooo, even the idea is nauseating right now.

Any chance of having made Disappearing progress this week? Nah - An unofficial weigh-in this morning put me at exactly the same as last week's official weigh-in. Add a major Indian blow-out to the picture and progress - notsomuch. Indeed, I'll be lucky to hold the line.

Waah, waah, deadlines, deadlines, etc etc. Will be stricter this week coming up, and hope to crack my way into the 17s finally by a week tomorrow.

While we sat having lunch at Spice Quarter, an Indian place that was new to us though, I noticed something.
'Oh, that explains that,' I said.
'What?' asked d, swllowing a mouthful of butter chicken.
'We're opposite a porn shop,' spearing some chicken jalfrezi.
d coughed.
'What?' she said again, perhaps not unreasonably.
'We always have good food when we're opposite a porn shop,' I said, nodding across at 'Colin's Books - Adult Entertainment Only - DVD's from £10' - yes of course the most annoying thing about that was the misplaced apostrophe in 'DVD's,' I'm an editor, goddammit.
'Oh.' d thought about it for a moment. 'Like Carluccio's?'
'Exactly,' I agreed - there's a Private shop which pretty much fills the view from our local Carluccio's restaurant. 'Actually, come to think of it, last time we discovered a kick-ass Indian place in Cardiff it was Spice Berry - riiiight next to Colin's Books.'
'Yyyyeah,' she acknowledged. 'You don't think perhaps we're just lazy when we're hungry and end up in the same street?
'And that other place,' I said, ignoring the impact of laziness almost completely, 'the one in London. Can't remember...'
'Oh, the Lido pastry place with those beautiful desserts!'
'That's the one, by the big place with...was it rubber outfits or somesuch?'
d pulled her glasses just a little down her nose, grinned and looked at me over the rims. 'I really don't recall, dear.'
'Oh - that Chinese place in Paris, right around the corner from the Moulin Rouge.'
She muttered something about the only good meal we had on our Parisian honeymoon.
'Well, to be fair - I didn't realise I'd booked us into a hooker-hotel in the red light district. People probably weren't going to the area for the quality of its bouillabaisse, dear.'
'True,' she said. 'To this day, nothing says Paris like moo goo gai pan.'
I shrugged. 'See? Good food opposite or next to porn joints.'
She kept up the grin, as if giving my proposition some serious thought.
'So what are you saying? I should open up a diner and just called it Grey's? Offer different service levels? Buy two desserts, get an appliance of your choice free?'
'Hmm,' I agreed. 'Fifty Shades of Frossssssting...'
'Down boy,' she laughed. 'Deadlines, remember?'
So if there's a conclusion we could pass on to the world, I guess it would be this: if you're looking for good food - go in search of porn.

But don't perhaps do so the day before a weigh-in.

The Big Brother Grin

Honestly, the resemblance is uncanny.

It's been an odd couple of days in this CCTV-watched life, where self-absorption is of course as natural as breathing, and yet we're never entirely sure who sees what.

A couple of nights ago, I collected d from work, and she told me that their automated card-reading system to sign in and out of shifts had been playing up, and hadn't read her card. She'd tried again. Nothing. A third time. Nothing. My wife decided the machine needed a dose of American in its life and gave it the finger.

Apparently, a colleague had seen the CCTV footage of her doing that, and laughed their ass off. We confidently expect her to appear on a TV clip-show any day now.

As for me, I'm drowning in deadlines and simply doing what I can do in the middle. Went to Starbucks today and Harry (yes, that Harry, he works there, despite having a life) grinned at me.
'Hey man,' he said. 'Dan and I were just in the office.'
'Yyyyyes?' I asked, wondering where this might be going.
'We both independently said you looked smaller on the CCTV than you used to do, so something's working.'
I'll be honest with you - I had a bit of an Ally McBeal moment right there and then, or a Bridget Jones moment if you prefer. In my mind, what happened was that I did a bit of a Kevin Bacon-flavoured Footloosey series of hot kick-ass dance moves up and down the store, including jumping up on the counter, doing a full forward somersault, leaping and swinging on a light fixture, landing at my usual table, flipping it upside down and doing a bit of an Irish jig thing on its support strut before jumping off and sauntering back to my place in line, nodding and taking cheers from the crowd.

'Cool, man,' I said in the boring set of dimensions we somewhat laughably call Real Life.

Still, went back to my seat with a big grin. Big Brother might be watching you. Apparently, this week, he quite likes what he sees. 

The Harry Attitude

I deleted the first four paragraphs of toight's blog entry, simply because I annoyed myself so much. I was complaining about this and fretting about that, and whinging like a whingy thing about something else entirely, and on, and on, and on it went.

Then I thought of my mate Harry. And the whinging went away, because it couldn't lift its head for shame by comparison.

It's a big day for Harry today. Today, he starts a course of treatment that will take him from how he looks and how he's perceived today to how he feels inside and wants to be perceived in the future. He's already been through a lot, because generally, our society likes to poke people with sticks when they're not what we think they 'should' be, and yell 'Waargh! Different is wrong, go and live under a stone and stop confusing us!' 

We really need to grow the hell up, as a society.

Harry's quest to match biology with psychology is a long, hard slog, partly because it's a complex process and partly because we're nowhere near as evolved a society as we think we are, so institutions and expectations make it harder than it should be. He's got a hell of a journey ahead of him, that needs him to be stronger that I'll ever have to even contemplate being.

Yet today's a really exciting day for this 28 year-old mate of mine, because it's the beginning of a new phase, a new push towards the version of himself that has to be. That just, absolutely, has to be. That's the difference, of course - it has to be.

I'd never be as crass as to compare our journeys, but I look at Harry, smiling and excited and on his way, and I look at myself whinging about this and fretting about that, and I just think 'Shurrup Tone, stop being an arse.' There's a lesson in his attitude, in his excitement and his smile, because whatever he's about to go through on his journey, his destination is set - it has to be. Everything in between is the getting there. That kind of vision's enough to make any whinge die on your lips, I promise you.

I'm not about to make saints or angels out of any bugger - I'm sure Harry can be a cantankerous sod if he wants to be, though I've never seen it. But neither am I above looking at my friends, and seeing the journeys they're on, and shutting the hell up from my point of ridiculous privilege, and raising a glass in salute of their strength of character, and the attitude that carries them on. And today, I look at Harry and think 'That's a dead cool attitude, man. Thanks for showing me that.'

We don't of course see more than a snapshot of each other's lives as we go through our days - this person, that person, their strength, their excitement, their optimism, their fear. Only those closest to us get to see the whole of us - that's the point of that closeness. But I know enough, I think, about my mate to say that a healthy heaping tablespoon of Harry's attitude in all of our minds and make-ups would do all of us a load of good, and me more than most. 

So enough neurotic whinging. Here's to Harry, and to all those people you know who are on journeys of their own, but who always make the day a bit brighter by also being a part of yours.

The Gleaming Peek

I'm writing this in the middle of the day, before schlepping my ass up to see the dietician who, as pal of mine and former dietician Christine sagely pointed out, probably in fact won't wave carrots at me at all, but will most likely talk to me about all the stuff I'm actually doing and yadda yadda yadda...
The irony being, I hate talking about all this stuff. I know, laugh, go ahead - "Well, if you hate talking about it so much, what the hell's the point of the blog, dude?" Ultimately, as I've said before, the point of the blog is to have people to disap-goddammned-point - it's the equivalent of a god in a godless universe, I need to have at least the illusion of you guys (or actually, mostly gals) out there watching me, judging me, to keep me in line so I don't do just what the hell I want and end up dead in an enormous puddle of chocolate frosting. See - you may not know this, but I think of each and every one of you as gods. Something for the resume, there.

Let's get to the boring, intensely male, dick-measuring business of the weekly weigh-in. Here we are, folks, the incremental, rigid, linear metric of success or abject failure...

18st 1.
One pound again. OK, so I am the optimistic inchworm, pulling myself along on an imperceptibly reducing belly towards a metric of success, woohoo!
Thing is, that was first thing this morning. Hung around, not having time for breakfast, peed, and saw my first gleaming peek beyond the Disappearing Rubicon - At some point before I first put food in my body today, I exerted a pressure on the Earth equivalent to 17st 13.75, goddammit. Then I had brunch, and the gleaming peek no doubt vanished under the additional stress of toast and tomato soup. So there we are, that's that. I'm not of course claiming 17st 13.75 as my weigh-in today, because that would diminish the ungovernably awful sense of swaggering pride with which I intend to berate everyone I know when I get that result first thing in the morning in - at this rate - another two weeks. Oh yes...I can wait...
Am I happy with 18st 1? Welllll, yes and no. On the one hand, I'm a guy, so basically I want to drive everywhere like an asshole drunk on amphetamine and speed (see what I did there?), and every week I lose just a pound is sort of like being stuck in a 20 mile an hour zone with two kids and a crate of eggs loose on the back seat. But on the other hand, the experience of Disappearing this time is not in any meaningful sense of the word hard. That's because I'm not being as rigid or as disciplined, and so of course, the results are going to be slower to come. Which is better? Meh, I don't know. I think I'm probably easier to live with this time round than I was the first time, but that's not entirely a judgment I'm qualified to make.

Anyhow - time to disappear in the purely geographical sense, as well as the body mass index sense. Let's see what the dietician says, shall we?

The Dietetic Determination

Tomorrow is of course weigh-in day within my tiny Disappearing universe. As per usual, despite obsessive weighing, I have no particular idea what the morning will bring - it seems to rather depend on how much evaporates out of me overnight. Perversely, again given my obsessive weighing, I don't particulary care what the result says. I'm probably not any worse this week than I was last, and ultimately that'll do for me. If there's progress, so much the groovier.

Tomorrow is also the funeral of a friend-in-law of mine. It's almost inconceivable to me that I don't know the guy who died, as almost everyone I know seems to know him, but I don't. Tragic story though - young lad (which is to say, younger than me), reasonably new dad, stone dead of an asthma attack. I've told my pal Sian, who's coming for the funeral, that if she happens to survive me, I'd quite like 'Carpe the fuck out of this diem' on any tombstone I happen to have. (Shrugs - I wanted to be fed to the komodo dragons at London Zoo, but people tell me that's 'weird,' mutter mutter whinge whinge...)

I also have the spectacular irrelevance of a dietetic appointment tomorrow afternoon. This was made for me when I was 19st 3lbs. All the likelihood would seem to be that I'll be at least a stone lighter than that when I see the dieticians tomorrow.

Forgive me, I rather laugh when I get referred to dieticians - it seems to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the issue of obesity. Let me just point something out to any dieticians who happen to stumble across this entry - your entire careers are based on a fundamentally flawed premise. Thanks for calling.

It's the same flawed logic as the big fuck-off skull-and-crossbones warnings on cigarette packets. To quote comedian Denis Leary, 'it's like they think smokers around the world are gonna grab the box and go "Holy SHIT! These things are bad for you! Shit I thought they were good for you, I thought they had Vitamin C in 'em and stuff!"'

It's not that we don't know all the mathematics of the situation - at least as much as you let us, with your new studies every time we turn around (New study finds eating cheese makes you thin! New study says eat chocolate for a slimmer waistline! New study says oops, sorry, we fucked up on that whole chocolate thing!). We do, we know. Things that taste nice put weight on us, things that taste like gymsocks or water don't. Hell, there's probably a study waiting to be published that proves that 'taste' itself was an evolutionary step to drive us towards the foods that would put some meat on our bones, cos fuck is it chilly around these parts.

We know. We get it. What we really need - and it feels weird to say this - is a psychiatric appointment. We need help to reprogramme whatever fucked-up messages we took from whoever or whatever in our lives that meant not only did taste=weight gain, but taste=do not stop. That's what we need. But instead, tomorrow, I'm going to be patronised by some fucker on behalf of the UK Carrot Board or somesuch, and much as I'll happily rant to you about it, I'll sit there, and I'll nod and go "Aha," and "Really? Cool..." just to get my oversized ass back out through the door.
Bottom line, when people younger than me are dropping dead of goddamned asthma, it's enough of an excuse to make you think 'Carpe Cakem.' But no, that's not going to happen either, I'm just saying.

And on that cheery note, I'm saying no more - time to have a sliver of evening with d before walking at 7.30 tomorrow.

The Dotty Dress and the Short-Sleeved Shirts

Apologies, been insanely busy for a few days.

Still am, actually, but figured I'd take a moment to blog - if nothing else, my freind Sian tells me she reads them on her lunch hour at work, and people tell me tomorrow's Monday, so it sort of feels like a commission.

A very odd week, and no mistake. Am continuing to drive myself nuts with morning and evening unofficial weigh-ins. Have noticed swings of up to five pounds between an evening and the following morning, so who the hell knows what's going on any more? All I can do is keep on keeping on and trust that something good will happen.

It's really helpful, in trusting something good will happen, to have a couple of examples like those that have popped up today.

We've been doing a bit of a spring clean recently - my Tardis wardrobe is dismantled and bagged, ready to go to any Whovian who a) wants it, b) can collect it, and c) in the absence of instructions, can figure out how to put it together. As part of this process, we've been deciding which clothes to keep, and which to ditch.

Partly, I think, as a way of getting 'trying on clothes to see if we can throw them out' into my insano-schedule, d has been suggesting to me for a couple of days that, as it's been nice and Summery, I should wear some short sleeved shirts from the wardrobe. And I have, almost without thinking about it. And they've worked, and fitted, and looked, people tell me, pretty good. The point of which is that if I'd tried to do them up when I re-started this, they'd have looked absolutely hideous and I wouldn't have voted to keep them.

Keeping them now, that's for sure.

Again, have been more than inspired in this by d. As part of the spring clean, d tried on her wedding dress. Ten and a half years ago, she looked amazing in it, though (and I'm faiiiirly sure she's OK with me telling you this), she wore a 'sausage' underneath it to make it work as well as it did - a sausage, I'm also fairly sure I don't need to explain, being a kind of control garment.

When she tried it on this week - sans sausage - the wedding dress...well, to use her phrase, it hung off her like a sack. Big handfuls of golden material were pinchable either side before it fit anywhere near her. That's my Disappearing Woman.

It was a revelation underlined today, when, as we went out for lunch, she put on a black and white polka dot dress she'd already given away more than ten years ago, to a friend. Annie, the friend, has sadly since passed away, and the dress came back to d as a memento. d was sure she'd never wear it again - it was too small for her a decade ago when she gave it away.

Fits her beautifully now. Was hardly able to take my eyes off her all day.

Annnnd so we go to exercise biking, to sweat, manfully - and then probably to at least a reasonably cool shower, but the point is this: Disappearing, ultimately, works. Clothes begin to fit again. I have three Winter coats that I have yet to try on, but they'll be within my wardrobe-range by the time Winter actually gets here, so that, in the immortal lines of Epona, one of my goddaughters, I can once again 'look like a Watcher' - big Buffy fan, her mother having done her job well.

As I recall, the coats start to fit me somewhere in the high 17 stones. So - here's hoping for sooner rather than later.

The Irritant Apathy

Rassen frassen rotten rirty risappearing rullshit.

Endlessly snappy and irritable today - in case you missed that from the intro-line.
Strange combination - feeling exhausted and antsy at the same time, like I want to do lots, or need to do lots, but can't or can't be bothered. Humph.

Went back to walking yesterday - 9.01 miles all told throughout the day - but didn't get to any biking. Day went slightly odd when my mother's burglar alarm went off and we had to come back from Cardiff to shut the thing up. Going for an Indian meal for dinner, when I was particularly hungry, probably wasn't a good move, although as it turned out, it wasn't good enough to finish, so we didn't eat that much of it.

Couldn't go walking this morning, it was abbbbbsolutely pouring down. so maybe, in the final analysis, that's all today is - feeling antsy but unable to do anything, over-deadlined and required to sit on my ass, ticking a pathetic number of things off my To Do List.

Sigh.

Getting up in a moment to jump on the bike. The bizarre thing is I don't really want to get on the bike.

Oh, see what I mean, there's no reasoningwith me today, I'm even annoying myself. So I guess I might as well be annoyed and sweaty. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

The Nazi Inconsistency

OK, so I’m not sure what to make of today’s weigh-in.

All week long in (yes, you knew this was happening) a series of increasingly demented unofficial weigh-ins, I’ve been either the same as last Tuesday (18st 3) at best, or several pounds over – which, given the amount of walking I’ve done recently, was a bit of an annoyance.

Last night (yes, yes, I know it’s insane to weigh at night), I weighed in at 18st 5.75.

When I woke up this morning, after my first pee of the day (nothing more), I weighed in at 18st 2 lbs. So, out of nowhere, I’ve managed to walk my way to a one pound loss. Yay – happy enough with that. Kind of weird to have evaporated and peed nearly four pounds of liquid overnight (swear I’m not yet The Incontinent Man!).

Then I peed again. And yeah, you know what I’m like, I thought ‘Ooh, maybe…’ and weighed again. 18st 2.25. How does that work? I lost more liquid and put on a quarter of a pound?

Did some work, felt the need again, peed more (it was quite a rock and roll morning, all in all). 18st 1.25.

Am I going to take the 18st 1.25 as the real result? Nnnno, I don’t think so. Overall, I’m going to take the one pound loss, and declare a real weigh-in of 18st 2.

Yes, that’s less than I’d hoped for this week, but as I say, given that it’s the first time this week I’ve actually seen any numbers lower than last week’s weigh-in, I’m happy enough to take it, run, and focus forward on the next milestone in two pounds’ time.

Tonight after work though, d went to shower – she weighed first, just out of curiosity (I’d accidentally left the Nazi Scales in situ when I eventually did a bunk down to Cardiff), and it did the same to her too – in her case, she was a pound lighter after her shower. ‘What?’ she said, ‘I washed a whole pound of crap off myself?’

Miiiiight just possibly be time to invest in some new Nazi batteries. Maybe. But anyway, for now, I’m declaring 18st 2. Next week, dammit – 18st 0, or even a sneaky peak into the 17s.

Didn’t walk today. That begins again tomorrow too.

The Walking Fool

I've now officially failed on the 'Walk the Taff Trail Every Day For Seven Days' challenge I set myself.
I did it every day until today - and yesterday, with the Trail and other walking, I topped out at 9.7 miles in the day. But, by the time I got to bed, my feet were two big flippers of pain. So this morning - notsomuch with the walking, or in very great measure, the moving about. I ended up going to Cardiff with d, and, when we could have got a train back in time for me to cut my feet further into ribbon steak, she told me to be sensible.

Sensible won out. What the Nazi Scales say in the morning is pretty much up to them. I've done what I could do this week - in the last four days, I've walked over 35 miles. Have I eaten well? Up to today, yes. Today, we had lunch at Jamie's, which involved both bread and pasta, and in my case, some frozen yoghurt - yes, dessert of a kind, but again, I'm testing the Aristotelian principle, and this time, generally I'm winning.

I also have ended the day without getting on the bike, so ultimately, today's been a higher-than-normal food day, and a lower-than-normal exercise day - absolutely the antithesis of what a Monday should be. But as I say, whatever tomorrow's reading is, it is, and we move on from there. Any journey will have setbacks. The important thing appears to be not let them push you back, but to accept them and move the hell forward.
 

The Merthyr Raven

Once upon 4AM dreary,
While I pondered, weak and weary,
Whether to go pee again or try to fall asleep and snore.
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some pisshead come rapping, rapping on my blue front door.
Suddenly there came a clanging,
Front door open, sliding, banging.
Covers thrown abruptly back and landing on the bedroom floor.
Quoth my darling - "What the fuck?!"

Ahem - with apologies to Edgar Allan Poe, I should probably stop with the imitation poetry riiiiight about now.

It was actually 4.40. I was laying in bed, knowing I had to get up at 6 to do my six-mile walk, wondering whether to go and pee, or try and go back to sleep, when there was a sound. A front-door opening sound.

d woke up sharpish, and we looked at each other.

"You heard that, right?" we said, almost in unison. Agreeing that we did, we crept down the stairs, in the most British way imaginable - turning on lights, taking nothing with which to defend ourselves, each in our respective nightware, and calling out "Hellooo?" Y'know, because burglars respond to that approach.

I flung open the kitchen door - nothing but the stench of chain-smoking from the occasionally suicidal woman next door. The front door was closed. Hmm - nothing, then, I thought. Went through into the living room...

Ah.

We'd acquired a completely pissed, unconscious, shoeless bloke. Laying on the couch, asleep. 

We woke him up and told him he'd got the wrong house.

"You're sure?"

We assured him we really were, and escorted him into the wonderful, drizzling world of Buggeroff. 

He disappeared. We went back to bed. 

Five minutes later, he was banging on our door again. Apparently, he couldn't remember where "Melissa" lived. Neither, we assured him, could we. He buggered off again. We did ask about his shoes, but he didn't seem particularly bothered about them.

He was knocking on next door's front door for about fifteen minutes. Then there were raised voices....annnnnnd then I slept, for the remaining half hour before walk-time. 

Some days, my home town is a very special place... This was pretty much the third instalment of weirdness on our balcony - there was The Case of the Naked-Ass Blonde, and the Suicidal Girl Next Door. Now The Case of the Merthyr Raven can be added to our case files. And our front door will be double-locked every night.

After the visit of the Merthyr Raven, I turned the alarm off, and took an extra ten minutes. The idea of not walking this morning was verrrry tempting, but the need to confront the wrong-wayness of the figures this week dragged my ass out on my walk. Over the last three days, I've now walked 27 miles, 18 of them on my daily early morning stints. And still, the numbers feel like they're going in the wrong direction. Humph.

Still, on we go, doing what should work, and seeing what the hell happens next.

The Mile Nine Club

OK, so something's going a little pear-shaped. And no, I don't mean the election. Calling that a little pear-shaped would be like calling a massive motorway pile up a tad inconvenient.
I mean within the world of my Disappearing, something's gone a little pear-shaped. Yesterday, I walked over nine miles over the course of the day, burning over 1200 calories, and biked for over 300. Today, so far, I've walked 8.4 miles, burned 1156 calories and biked none. That in itself is pear-shaped, as I should have biked by now. Damn. But I've also been unofficial weighing, and the numbers have been less than kind. The only things I can think of that need reporting are two nights ago I had a chicken and mushroom pie at a restaurant, and the pastry was good, so it was probably lard-based. Then last night, I had a plate of Indian food which was mostly meat, no creamy sauces or the like.

It's probably worth hugely over-sharing at this point that I haven't been a productive bathroom-user for a couple of days, except in terms of fluids. So it's always possible that my colon is knitting itself a lovely cosy meat-sweater as we speak, and I'm carrying half a cow and most of a chicken as extra bodyweight. But hey - this is the NEW Disappearing Man. I'm not freaking out. I'm keeping on doing what I know should work in theory, and hoping that by keeping faith with myself and the project, the results will ultimately come. And if they don't this week, they will next. Am particularly pleased to have done a couple of long-walk days, and to have another couple lined up for tomorrow and Sunday. Feels like the kind of thing I should be doing at least, so will push, and push on.

The Extra Mile

Went walking on my own this morning, and whereas I'm now used to walking, say, three or four miles in a morning, today I decided to push it a little further and return to an old favourite route - down the Taff Trail to The Dynefor Arms and back. With an additional detour to McDonalds for my 'orphan breakfast' of porridge and water, and a desperate, heavy-sighing vote for the least offensive of the available mediocrities, that's a solid 13,000 steps, or 6.24 miles. According to the all-knowing sage that is my phone, that means I've burned 855 calories before breakfast (200 calories), putting me ahead of the day.

I'm not entirely sure why I've decided to go back to this route so soon - the Disappearing malarkey is a finnicky business, and it seems to take notice of upsurges in effort, but on the other hand, you can ony do them every do so often, because the body gets used to doing x-amount of work and normalises, so the short term boost in weightloss settles in, and then you have to invest more energy to impress it the next time. With the doctorial embargo on insano-exercise, it's not like I have shock tactics to resort to, but am going to try and do this every day for a week and see where it takes me.
If anything, I think it's proximity to my previous Disappearing Rubicon - the 18 stone barrier - that's made me decide to do this today, coupled with the sudden absence of Ma (holidaying). Felt fine, incidentally - no dying, no drama, no panting particularly. Little bit of singing (Buddy Holly, since you ask), and another Doctor Who audiobook finished. Productive morning all round, I'd say.

It's the extension of that feeling I had on the uphill a few entries ago: while I've yet to notice a particular difference in terms of my clothes, my body itself feels like it's moving with greater ease and reliability, so I'm meeting it halfway, using it to push on. Feels good so far.

And on into the day. By this time tomorrow, the balance of indistinguishable mediocrity in this country may well have changed. For the first time in my political life, I find it incredibly hard to give a toss.

The Mini-Wave Necessity

Yep - d tells me this, often.

If you've never seen a really fat man doing a nauseatingly self-congratulatory happy dance, and have determined that your life will in fact be complete without ever witnessing such a phenomenon, you might want to look away now.

Today's weigh-in - 18st 3lbs.
That's Stone 1 done and dusted and out of the way, ladies and gentlemen. I say that like it has any independent meaning, when of course it doesn't - it's merely 14 lbs. But given that I live in Ye Olde Britaine, rather than a sensible modern country, those of us over a certain age still use stones as a unit of measurement, which means for me, 14 lbs is one stone, which is enough of a reason for at least a miniature happy dance. Awoohoo.

The fun thing is of course, in just four pounds' time (and yes, I'm aware that's a messed up idea), I get to celebrate again, and properly that time, because then, my Nazi Scales will show a 17, rather than an 18.

I've said this before, so excuse the brief re-hash, but the first time I Disappeared, I didn't feel like I was properly getting somewhere till I saw a 17 in the Stones marker. Now granted, that time round, it had taken me 3.5 stones - 46 pounds - to see that first 17, whereas this time round it will have taken me a mere 18, but still, it feels like a Disappearing Rubicon because it's the point at which off the peg clothes start to really be available to me, from memory.

Today was among the strangest days in recent memory. Woke up in the middle of the night and stared at the ceiling for about three hours, thinking. That meant I slept a little late, and was actually sitting in the bathroom when my day-job boss Skyped me for the weekly team meeting. Thankfully, when Skype launched, it launched voice-only. "That's OK," said the boss, "we don't need to see you."
I couldn't agree more, I thought.

Then there was the mini-dancing at the weigh-in figures, and my usual Tuesday journey to my Cardiff Starbucks. En route, I caught up with my pal Wendy, which involved the weirdest proposal involving a clipboard I think I've heard in a long, long time.

Starbucks was itss usual groovy self - great news from my pal Naz, plus, to be fair, one of the other oddest conversations I've had in a while, this one about soy (especially in this instance, soy porridge), and how it's apparently not a good thing for men. She blushed then, saying it was inappropriate for her to have raised the subject. It wasn't - it was useful health advice: to be fair, I like soy generally only as a sauce, so I'm fairly safe from the effects of the demon bean.

Oh, forgot my heart meds when I left home this morning, so had a minor fibrilation within minutes of arriving in Starbucks. Did my usual thing and it sodded off. Just after it had sodded off and Naz had told me about the evilness of soy, I turned around to find my mother sitting at my table.

"Congratulations on the stone, love," she said. "I brought you something to celebrate."
Chocolate? I wondered. Peanut Butter Cornettos? Twenty grand in used bills?

Apples. Four fresh Waitrose apples.
To be fair, they're lovely apples, and I realised as a result of this drive-by fruiting that she was right - this is what celebration probably is while I'm Disappearing. So yippee skippy, go wild and crazy for apples!

Got the train home, and it got jusssst over halfway before telling us all that there was a problem up the line, so we'd all have to sod off out of it and go and wait in the rain for the replacement bus service.

"How long will that be?" I asked.
"Dunno, mate. Prob'ly at least half an hour," said the ticket-monkey.
A...ha.
I called Ma.
"No problem," she said, a little tight-lipped. "I'll be down in quarter of an hour."
The replacement bus came. The replacement bus went. As it turned out, there was a big traffic accident on the road between her and me, so she was a bit delayed getting down to me.
"Take these," she said when she arrived. She had three pill dispensers in her hand. "Fill 'em for me. Then put one in your bloody briefcase, ya numpty."

I got home eventually at exactly the time I would have got home if I'd stayed in the warm, coffee-scented loveliness of my Starbucks for another hour and got on the next, unimpeded train. Sigh.

Still - woohoo - One stone down. And on we go - Next goal, two weeks from now, see a 17.

The Uphill Evolution

Went walking this morning as is becoming normal, but instead of our usual round and round and round route in the local park, I put a foot down.
"I really want to actually go somewhere," I said.
"Where then?" said Ma.
"Up," I said.
Ma gave a mischievous grin. We do uphill really quite well round here.
"Right then," she said.

We parked up at the local retail park, and walked up from there to her new bungalow. I'm familiar with this walk - we've done something like it before, but not since last year, when, to be frank, it nearly killed me. I was one wheezing, sweating, panting mess the last time.

This morning - notsomuch. Powered on up, did three miles. Sure, it was touch, but not tough enough to make me pant. This, I'm guessing, is the result of what progress there's been so far.

Keeping this entry brief - just feels like one of the most tangible metrics of Disappearing measurement so far. Eventually there's going to be measurable change in terms of clothing, but until that shows up, being able to do things that used to hurt me is good enough to put a grin on my face.

Since then, I've had a relatively calorie-heavy day - porridge for breakfast, beans on toast (two slices) for lunch, followed by a fruit salad and some cashew nuts that probably shouldn't have been wolfed down as they were. Still - not going to stress and freak as I would have done a couple of years ago - "Waaargh! The nuts of doom have passed my lips" Not doing that this time. Just keeping head down, ass up, and get on the bike as per usual. Pushing on, doing what I can do, delighting in the fact that that's more than it used to be.

The Dogged Slog

There's a point, when you're Disappearing, when you actually start to lose track of what day it is. You get into a routine of doing certain things. I'd deviated the last couple of mornings, by not walking, but was back to it this morning, and it's felt very much like business as usual - up to walk, breakfast of McDonalds porridge and a bottle of water. Starbucks for much pleasure-lite coffee. Home for dinner - in this case, one can tomato soup with chilli and three slices brown bread - yes, three, bit too much, probably, but meh. Now I have one more hour before I have to get on the bike for 45 minutes to an hour of Sudoking, then collect d from work, and bed. And that will have been Saturday - much, to be fair, like Friday. I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, complaining about that, it's been a great productive day, and many things have been obliterated from the To Do List. All I'm saying is that if you're going to Disappear, being able to acclimatise (acclimate, Americans) yourself to a degree of routine which others might find innnnncredibly dull is probably, for some swathes of time, a good trait to have. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I'm not yet sure what I'm going to do. I wouldn't though lay very strong odds against doing something similar all over again - there's a vintage fair in Cardiff that d's interested in checking out (pain threshold permitting after two gruelling twelve-hour shifts back to back). So we'll see.

Err...I do appreciate that precisely the point of today's blog entry does make it less likely to be particularly riveting as a blog entry. Some days are diamonds, I guess - some are just miles walked, and biked, and not a whole lot eaten. One thing I should say is the Mirror from yesterday smashed and buggered off, so that's useful.

Anyhow - on with the work, then on to the bike.

The Failure Mirror

Yes, the Failure Mirror even turns the world through ninety degrees.

Ahhhh, there it is.

I’ve almost been waiting for the day that turns out to be today. The Day of the Failure Mirror.

The mind, of course, is an incredible thing, and perception the great filter we have for the realities not only of the universe but of our place within it (the sky is blue, this person’s attractive, we are good or bad or honest people). None of what our perceptions tell us are of course necessarily, objectively (or indeed in any way at all) ‘true.’

Time flies when we’re having fun, and drags its feet when we’re not. When we make a strong effort, we 

perceive its impact, whether or not the impact is objectively ‘made’ – we feel good for having made the effort, for having set out on a journey. If we pause too long, or give ourselves some silence in which to brood, that positive perception of impact can be stalled, or stopped, or fall away from our minds. That’s the Failure Mirror effect.

I haven’t walked in the morning for two days now, and today it doesn’t seem to matter what anyone says to me – I feel bloated, and frumpy, and as though the effort has not been worth it even so far, let alone when I contemplate the vast majority of the effort which is yet to come. This is probably the most dangerous of days so far in the Disappearing, because the Failure Mirror whispers of worthlessness, hisses of pleasure, and abandonment, and the thrill of giving in and blowing out. ‘It’s not making any difference,’ it says, ‘so why not enjoy yourself. Could be run over by a truck tomorrow.’

It’s interesting that this should happen today, because I have actually had a couple of compliments in the last few days – from d, who says my face is ‘always the first thing to go’, and from a pal of mine, who, when I saw her today, said she could see a difference in me. I suppose, without in any way equating the two, it’s the same sort of logic as applies to depression – people can tell you all the great things in your life till they’re utterly exhausted and blue in the face. If you’re locked into the thrall of the Depression Mirror, none of it can get through, and you can rationalize all the good things to shreds before they get anywhere near you.

But, as I say, there’s not a direct equation between the two, not at all. I know things, rationally – I know that giving up and giving in would be in the long run the wrong thing to do. I know to some extent where the Failure Mirror has come from today – the lack of walking prompting guilt and a negative self-image; having bought an optimistic T-shirt that doesn’t quite fit as I’d like it to just yet; meeting a guy who used to be big, but who likewise has lost a lot of weight, and kept it off; catching sight of myself inadvertantly in the stainless steel reflection of a lift, all of it utterly inconsequential in itself, but all of it reflecting slivers of the Failure Mirror into my mind, all of it helping reflect to me the as-yet-unsuccessful Disappearing Man, or the destined-to-fail Disappearing Man. But, without getting morbid about the thing, I know that if I get on the bike tonight, and walk tomorrow, and eat healthily, and bike tomorrow, I’m at least tuning my body towards the direction I want it to go, whether or not I myself see any worthwhile difference. And I also know that I could wake up tomorrow in an entirely different frame of mind, and if I don’t, then it could be the next day.

Any Disappearing journey will have days of the Failure Mirror in it. If you can learn to strip it of its power of reality, if you can break it down into its component parts, rather than thinking of it as a reality, you can defeat it (as I say, it’s not really like a Depression Mirror, because you can control it and defeat it).

So – onward, to the SudukoBike again!