Of course, the trouble with the Life-Changing Magic Of Not Being A Dick (I'm SO gonna write that book...) is that you have to...y'know...NOT be a dick.
Totally been a Dick this week. In almost every conceivable way, this week, I own the Dickitude.
Walking: no. Exercise: no. d's home-made Bread To Die For? Oh hellyes, to the point of utter enstuffedness. Sunday lunch with a sleep afterwards, just so it can realise there's nowhere to go and get stored as fat? Yep. All that and more. More or less took a flamethrower to the idea of Not Being A Dick this week. Don't ask me why, that gets us nowhere of value. Sometimes, just 'Because' is all the answer there is.
Therefore, it's not really a surprise that the only time I've unofficially weighed-in this week (having scared the living daylights out of myself by a casual mirror-glance on getting out of the bath), I've seen the Nazi Scales punch me in the paunch, with readings of 17 stone 12.75!
However, that has turned out to be something of a malicious beating, as this morning's official weigh-in has me clocking in at 17 stone 5 pounds. Down, by half a pound. Yes, absolutely it's pathetic - in the words of comedian Peter Kay on the experience of watching people being congratulated at a Slimming World meeting, 'What's a pound? I shit a pound!' - but given the endickitude of the week, I'm more than happy to take it.
Of course the danger there is that one begins to believe the universe is on one's side - 'Wahay, I was a dick and still went the right way.'
This. Is. Never. True.
This, in fact, is the very acme of a false sense of security. This attitude must be punched repeatedly in the face until it shuts up and allows reason to rule again.
So, another week of resolving to Not Be A Dick. Just like last week...
Hmm. Fight the endickitude!
Showing posts with label weirdness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weirdness. Show all posts
Tuesday, 4 June 2019
Tuesday, 21 May 2019
The Disappearing Disappearance
'Course, you know what'll happen now, don't you?' I challenged.
'Go on,' said d, stretching out a conversational foot in front of her on the thin ice of my assumptions.
'It'll be bloody gone in the morning,' I declared. 'The thing about unofficial weigh-ins the day before the actual weigh-in is they're just there to taunt you and put you off your guard so they can kick your face in with disappointment on the day. This is The Way Of the Disappearing Universe. I Have Spoken...eth. So Shall It Be...'
Bloody was, an' all.
For reasons that passeth all understanding, but have more to do with the fact that yet another week has passed with me doing more stupid stuff than sensible stuff, I weighed-in yesterday. Oooh, I was tempted to blog it and so make it an 'official' weigh-in. Not that it was exactly a stellar result or anything - last week, I was 17 stone 4 pounds. Yesterday, I was 17 stone 3.5 pounds. But I was sooooo tempted to take it, make up some reason why yesterday was 'official' and go with it.
But no. Nooooo, Captian Big-Boy-Pants here decided to let it go, to act all sensible over dinner and trust to whatever the universe had in store for the 'properly' official weigh-in day.
You wanna know what the universe had in store for the 'properly' official weigh-in day?
Mm-hmm. 17 stone 4, that's what.
My minisicule little half-pound Disappearance this week - Disappeared overnight. I even did the stupid, desperate thing of waiting around for what I've taken to thinking of as 'Second Bathroom' (S'like a Hobbit's Second Breakfast, only...rather further along the process), but noooo. 17 stone 4. Still.
So that's that.
What we used to call a 'non-mover' in the days when music charts appeared to matter to the nation. On the one hand, disappointing, especially after the glimmer of even a tiny loss. On the other hand, given the week and its lack of much by way of serious effort, I should probably be all full of sunshine, light and gratitude. So - yay, I didn't put any weight on this week!
Yeah, I don't know either, it's a thing I'm trying, this positivity schtick, let's go with it and see where it leads...
'Go on,' said d, stretching out a conversational foot in front of her on the thin ice of my assumptions.
'It'll be bloody gone in the morning,' I declared. 'The thing about unofficial weigh-ins the day before the actual weigh-in is they're just there to taunt you and put you off your guard so they can kick your face in with disappointment on the day. This is The Way Of the Disappearing Universe. I Have Spoken...eth. So Shall It Be...'
Bloody was, an' all.
For reasons that passeth all understanding, but have more to do with the fact that yet another week has passed with me doing more stupid stuff than sensible stuff, I weighed-in yesterday. Oooh, I was tempted to blog it and so make it an 'official' weigh-in. Not that it was exactly a stellar result or anything - last week, I was 17 stone 4 pounds. Yesterday, I was 17 stone 3.5 pounds. But I was sooooo tempted to take it, make up some reason why yesterday was 'official' and go with it.
But no. Nooooo, Captian Big-Boy-Pants here decided to let it go, to act all sensible over dinner and trust to whatever the universe had in store for the 'properly' official weigh-in day.
You wanna know what the universe had in store for the 'properly' official weigh-in day?
Mm-hmm. 17 stone 4, that's what.
My minisicule little half-pound Disappearance this week - Disappeared overnight. I even did the stupid, desperate thing of waiting around for what I've taken to thinking of as 'Second Bathroom' (S'like a Hobbit's Second Breakfast, only...rather further along the process), but noooo. 17 stone 4. Still.
So that's that.
What we used to call a 'non-mover' in the days when music charts appeared to matter to the nation. On the one hand, disappointing, especially after the glimmer of even a tiny loss. On the other hand, given the week and its lack of much by way of serious effort, I should probably be all full of sunshine, light and gratitude. So - yay, I didn't put any weight on this week!
Yeah, I don't know either, it's a thing I'm trying, this positivity schtick, let's go with it and see where it leads...
Tuesday, 14 May 2019
The Hamster-Wheel of Panic
Last week I wrote this blog three days after my weigh-in, and, in that kind of maudlin, silent signalling of self-inflicted martrydom that I vaguely believe I learned from my bio-dad (He had a knack with a muscial choice, did my bio-dad, throwing down the late Elvis tracks like Suspicious Minds and My Boy, and singing his heart out to affect the mood of the room, while claiming he'd just fancied the sound of them), but which I can justly claim to have refind into a rather more fully sickening brow-clutching 'Woe is me! No, really, I'm fine' double standard, I reported that, in the wake of having dropped two pounds in a day and then maintained that level for a week, I would probably celebrate by injecting chocolate into my eyeballs or somesuch.
The point of which of course is that I wrote it on Friday, not Tuesday. So by Friday, I already knew what the intervening three days had looked like - sedentary, and while not exactly crammed from end to end with intra-venous chocolate, certainly not by any stretch as seriously dedicated to healthy eating as I should have been. So I prepped you for disaster by that throwaway line of what would 'probably' happen.
This, by the way, is the kind of hamster-wheel that circles all. The. Time in my brain. Reality, perception, work, non-work, how to justify and find the appropriate answers, the appropriate pose. Now, imagine that kind of acidic over-analysis applying to every single thing. Every single choice, every single action, where to stand, how to be, what to say and not-say-now, what to do and why not to do it till it's almost too late, and how, above all, to wage war. war on myself, war between the selves that want to succeed and want to fail, want to do what they set out to do and want to coolly revel in the epicness of failure. The war between the urge to triumph and the urge to self-destroy, and round, and round, and round, and round it goes, never stopping, never pausing, never ever shutting up - just in case you were wondering why I wear headphones 80% of the time, it's to block out this ungovernable nonsense in my brain.
I tried explaining this to a doctor once - he gave me more diet pills.
And yes, of course, incidentally, I know that this particular entry sounds like I just did an 8-ball of coke and have nowhere to go. Partially, that's because that's what it sounds like inside my head all the time, partially, it's because it's vaguely cathartic to get this out of my fingertips for a moment, and partially of course it's because some level of hamster-wheeling said 'Let them know - THAT'll be fun!'
All of which is by way of explaining that last week's entry was written with insider knowledge that I'd probably go up this week.
Then there was a Walk.
A walk I agreed to when there seemed fewer clouds in the sky and less work to do and fewer encroaching deadlines, and a walk which, when I woke up an hour before it was due to start, I gave a hearty 'Oh fuck!' about because by then I really didn't want to do it, because it was a 'led' walk, with Other Human Beings, which if you've been here a while you'll know I applaud in the abstract but detest in the reality. Nevertheless, the hamster-wheel turned, and the idea of having to explain I'd booked a place on the walk and then had been too put off by the proximity of humans to actually go through with it gave me a result of at the very least looking like I was having some kind of real problem with the outside world and its humans, and so, to disprove the appearance of that, irrespective of the reality of that, I should get my arse out the door and go.
So I went.
The walk itself was fine. The having to be sociable sucked - I'm not entirely sure why. They were nice people, good people, each with their own interesting backstory, but something deep in my heart resented the fact that I was obliged to be sociable with them, to ask them questions to which I could give not the most shrivelled of figs for the answers, to try and make them smile and laugh and, frankly, fail - tough crowd, your average ramblers, it appears - and JEEESUS, I swear I'm not on coke right know, but if you're reading this with spaces between the words it's only because my fingers are more courteous than my brain and they're cutting you a break. Anyyyyhow, did the walk. Longish walk, over 10,000 steps, many of them uphill, came home, collapsed, whinged in muscle-ache for the next day and a half, did nothing.
Weighed in this morning.
17 stone 4.
Might not sound like much to you, this half-pound of progress, but really, honestly, I will take it and kiss it and stroke it, and I shall call it George, because the onnnnly goddamn thing that can have got me there is yomping through the local nature with a bunch of people I'd much rather have shut out behind the safety of some earbuds. So - yay to them.
I know, right - this didn't go quite where you were thinking it would go, probably, because of all the high-octane fatalism at the front end, you probably expected a result of grandiose failure - hell, I kind of did. Again, thank the fingertips, they're far more often where the actual processing power of my brain is located - the majority of my ACTUAL brain is locked into spirals of hamster-wheeling about every decision from 'Tea or coffee?' to 'What do we need to do with the day?' to actually get anything constructive done, which is why a) the processing power's in the fingertips, and b) that's a good thing.
I think perhaps the thing is that this blog's been written not on cocaine, nor even on the grandly self-castigating melodrama of 'Oh woe is me, I've put on weight!' I have just checked my bank balance though, which rather spurred the self-revolving lemming in my brain to a series of monotonous 'Oh fuck''s, and it's probably that that started me off in such an insane spirit in this blog. Even as I write this, I can feel the panic levels falling, dropping, the boiling hot fear of crashing myself into the ever-loving ground eeeeeasing, even though nothing whatsoever has actually changed in that reality since I started writing the blog. Don't get me wrong, the hamster-wheel absolutely does revolve in the way I've detailed, all the time, without end (though crucially, gazing at the sea sometimes helps), but I can feel myself coming down from the abject, world-punching panic and fear of peering down the gunbarrel of financial oblivion, as the hamster-wheel revolves. Send the emails one needs to send. Get the money in the door. Pay the bills one has to pay, Revolve, revolve, revolve...
If this is now just sounding like splurge on a page, there's one important piece of connective tissue. Saw the weigh-in this morning, was all kinds of 'Cool - I'll take that this week. Saw the bank account, went 'Bang!' and started revolving at coke-speed. First thing I did? Went to Tesco, grabbed a sleeve of chocolate biscuits.
That's not even comfort eating, that's panic-eating. I didn't even particularly want them, I'm not, today, especially motivated by the sweetness and the chocolatey fantasticness of things. But get this - in response to a moment of stone cold panic, I spent money I do not have, on food that's practically guaranteed to elevate my blood sugars and is likely to be stored, in the absence of exercise, as fat. I paid...to self-harm.
I had four, as the basis of a bowl of cereal. Breakfast of self-defeating windbags, right there.
Now of course, I've come clean about them to you here, which means I'm not going to eat any more of them. But ultimately, the point is that the way my wind works is a constant wheel of questions, choices, judgements and random moments of panic.
And the immediate, unthinking response to a moment of panic was to grab the chocolate biscuits.
Did I mention that I ttried to explain this to a doctor once? Yyyyeah - diet pills.
While I know that the fundamental equation of weightloss is straightforward - take in less of the 'bad' stuff, do more of the good stuff that burns up the bad stuff, hoorah, all is well in the land of Oz - it is possibly worth acknowledging that what you're dealing with in many people's cases is not the calm, sunny-weathered mental landscape that can simply follow this equation to Positivityville. More often, you're throwing the equation (and the pills) into a cyclotron full of forks and expecting it to survive and make sense, even when the cyclotron panics.
My cyclotron panicked this morning. Fortunately, of course, it panicked after the weigh-in. Here's to not panic-eating evvvvvverything in the district before we do this again.
The point of which of course is that I wrote it on Friday, not Tuesday. So by Friday, I already knew what the intervening three days had looked like - sedentary, and while not exactly crammed from end to end with intra-venous chocolate, certainly not by any stretch as seriously dedicated to healthy eating as I should have been. So I prepped you for disaster by that throwaway line of what would 'probably' happen.
This, by the way, is the kind of hamster-wheel that circles all. The. Time in my brain. Reality, perception, work, non-work, how to justify and find the appropriate answers, the appropriate pose. Now, imagine that kind of acidic over-analysis applying to every single thing. Every single choice, every single action, where to stand, how to be, what to say and not-say-now, what to do and why not to do it till it's almost too late, and how, above all, to wage war. war on myself, war between the selves that want to succeed and want to fail, want to do what they set out to do and want to coolly revel in the epicness of failure. The war between the urge to triumph and the urge to self-destroy, and round, and round, and round, and round it goes, never stopping, never pausing, never ever shutting up - just in case you were wondering why I wear headphones 80% of the time, it's to block out this ungovernable nonsense in my brain.
I tried explaining this to a doctor once - he gave me more diet pills.
And yes, of course, incidentally, I know that this particular entry sounds like I just did an 8-ball of coke and have nowhere to go. Partially, that's because that's what it sounds like inside my head all the time, partially, it's because it's vaguely cathartic to get this out of my fingertips for a moment, and partially of course it's because some level of hamster-wheeling said 'Let them know - THAT'll be fun!'
All of which is by way of explaining that last week's entry was written with insider knowledge that I'd probably go up this week.
Then there was a Walk.
A walk I agreed to when there seemed fewer clouds in the sky and less work to do and fewer encroaching deadlines, and a walk which, when I woke up an hour before it was due to start, I gave a hearty 'Oh fuck!' about because by then I really didn't want to do it, because it was a 'led' walk, with Other Human Beings, which if you've been here a while you'll know I applaud in the abstract but detest in the reality. Nevertheless, the hamster-wheel turned, and the idea of having to explain I'd booked a place on the walk and then had been too put off by the proximity of humans to actually go through with it gave me a result of at the very least looking like I was having some kind of real problem with the outside world and its humans, and so, to disprove the appearance of that, irrespective of the reality of that, I should get my arse out the door and go.
So I went.
The walk itself was fine. The having to be sociable sucked - I'm not entirely sure why. They were nice people, good people, each with their own interesting backstory, but something deep in my heart resented the fact that I was obliged to be sociable with them, to ask them questions to which I could give not the most shrivelled of figs for the answers, to try and make them smile and laugh and, frankly, fail - tough crowd, your average ramblers, it appears - and JEEESUS, I swear I'm not on coke right know, but if you're reading this with spaces between the words it's only because my fingers are more courteous than my brain and they're cutting you a break. Anyyyyhow, did the walk. Longish walk, over 10,000 steps, many of them uphill, came home, collapsed, whinged in muscle-ache for the next day and a half, did nothing.
Weighed in this morning.
17 stone 4.
Might not sound like much to you, this half-pound of progress, but really, honestly, I will take it and kiss it and stroke it, and I shall call it George, because the onnnnly goddamn thing that can have got me there is yomping through the local nature with a bunch of people I'd much rather have shut out behind the safety of some earbuds. So - yay to them.
I know, right - this didn't go quite where you were thinking it would go, probably, because of all the high-octane fatalism at the front end, you probably expected a result of grandiose failure - hell, I kind of did. Again, thank the fingertips, they're far more often where the actual processing power of my brain is located - the majority of my ACTUAL brain is locked into spirals of hamster-wheeling about every decision from 'Tea or coffee?' to 'What do we need to do with the day?' to actually get anything constructive done, which is why a) the processing power's in the fingertips, and b) that's a good thing.
I think perhaps the thing is that this blog's been written not on cocaine, nor even on the grandly self-castigating melodrama of 'Oh woe is me, I've put on weight!' I have just checked my bank balance though, which rather spurred the self-revolving lemming in my brain to a series of monotonous 'Oh fuck''s, and it's probably that that started me off in such an insane spirit in this blog. Even as I write this, I can feel the panic levels falling, dropping, the boiling hot fear of crashing myself into the ever-loving ground eeeeeasing, even though nothing whatsoever has actually changed in that reality since I started writing the blog. Don't get me wrong, the hamster-wheel absolutely does revolve in the way I've detailed, all the time, without end (though crucially, gazing at the sea sometimes helps), but I can feel myself coming down from the abject, world-punching panic and fear of peering down the gunbarrel of financial oblivion, as the hamster-wheel revolves. Send the emails one needs to send. Get the money in the door. Pay the bills one has to pay, Revolve, revolve, revolve...
If this is now just sounding like splurge on a page, there's one important piece of connective tissue. Saw the weigh-in this morning, was all kinds of 'Cool - I'll take that this week. Saw the bank account, went 'Bang!' and started revolving at coke-speed. First thing I did? Went to Tesco, grabbed a sleeve of chocolate biscuits.
That's not even comfort eating, that's panic-eating. I didn't even particularly want them, I'm not, today, especially motivated by the sweetness and the chocolatey fantasticness of things. But get this - in response to a moment of stone cold panic, I spent money I do not have, on food that's practically guaranteed to elevate my blood sugars and is likely to be stored, in the absence of exercise, as fat. I paid...to self-harm.
I had four, as the basis of a bowl of cereal. Breakfast of self-defeating windbags, right there.
Now of course, I've come clean about them to you here, which means I'm not going to eat any more of them. But ultimately, the point is that the way my wind works is a constant wheel of questions, choices, judgements and random moments of panic.
And the immediate, unthinking response to a moment of panic was to grab the chocolate biscuits.
Did I mention that I ttried to explain this to a doctor once? Yyyyeah - diet pills.
While I know that the fundamental equation of weightloss is straightforward - take in less of the 'bad' stuff, do more of the good stuff that burns up the bad stuff, hoorah, all is well in the land of Oz - it is possibly worth acknowledging that what you're dealing with in many people's cases is not the calm, sunny-weathered mental landscape that can simply follow this equation to Positivityville. More often, you're throwing the equation (and the pills) into a cyclotron full of forks and expecting it to survive and make sense, even when the cyclotron panics.
My cyclotron panicked this morning. Fortunately, of course, it panicked after the weigh-in. Here's to not panic-eating evvvvvverything in the district before we do this again.
Tuesday, 30 April 2019
The Worm-Eater's Blues
Nobody likes me,
Everybody hates me,
Think I'll go and eat worms...
Not really, no - I'm on much more of an upswing, emotionally, this week than I was last, when for some reason, things just seemed to get on top of me and I posted from my blanket-fort.
Sigh...in the interests of honesty, not a real blanket-fort, a thoroughly fictional one - got stuck in to editing a great novel that'll be coming atcha sometime vaguely soonish, and it provided a bit of an escape from the real world, as I wasn't doing Reality as such last week.
Nevertheless, I did actually get on the Nazi Scales last Tuesday morning, and then his that knowledge allll to myself like a squirrel with its nuts of nonsense. I was 17st 5 pounds last Tuesday. Up again. Understandably up, so I'm told I can't complain.
I'd quite like to complain about not being able to complain. Quite like to stamp my foot into mashed banana, overturn my dish of pudding and cry till I'm red in the face and people run around and mortgage the house to buy me things to soothe me.
But, as that's not gonna happen, apparently, I can't complain.
Can't complain about this week's result either. Because for a whoooole other week, I've done precisely nothing to help myself lose weight. There has been lackadaisical eating, there has been fudge and Other Stuff, there has been almost less than zero walking. I wouldn't be surprised to find my ass is growing moss, frankly.
Which is why today found me getting on the Nazi Scales, seeing them tell me I was 17st 6.5, and twisting round to shout at my own ass.
'Seriously? What the fuck? You're full of shit!'
No, really. I got off the scales, got on with things, refused to get entirely dressed because surely, if it knew what was good for it, my ass would be doing its thing any minute, and then I'd have to weigh again to get the real figure.
An hour and a half later, I was actively threatening my own ass.
'Straighten up and fly right, damn you, or I'll get a tapeworm. Then you'll be sorry... Shurrup, I know I'll be sorry too, that's not the point. You're an ass, you have very few jobs to do in your life. Do what you're there for, otherwise I'll have to write a blog about going up another pound and a half this week, and I'll make ya look really bad. I know, I know, you're an ass, it's not like you're exactly a looker to begin with, but gimme a goddamn break here!'
It was more or less when I heard that line, out in the open, bounding off the concrete walls of my office, that I swallowed, took a deep breath, got dressed and made myself some breakfast. When you're threatening your own ass with a tapeworm, it's time to get over yourself and get on with the day.
Still decided to constipation-shame my ass in this blog though. Hey, you have to take your moments of self-determination where you can.
Onward, to more walking and the being of the sensible...
Also maybe a worm...
Everybody hates me,
Think I'll go and eat worms...
Not really, no - I'm on much more of an upswing, emotionally, this week than I was last, when for some reason, things just seemed to get on top of me and I posted from my blanket-fort.
Sigh...in the interests of honesty, not a real blanket-fort, a thoroughly fictional one - got stuck in to editing a great novel that'll be coming atcha sometime vaguely soonish, and it provided a bit of an escape from the real world, as I wasn't doing Reality as such last week.
Nevertheless, I did actually get on the Nazi Scales last Tuesday morning, and then his that knowledge allll to myself like a squirrel with its nuts of nonsense. I was 17st 5 pounds last Tuesday. Up again. Understandably up, so I'm told I can't complain.
I'd quite like to complain about not being able to complain. Quite like to stamp my foot into mashed banana, overturn my dish of pudding and cry till I'm red in the face and people run around and mortgage the house to buy me things to soothe me.
But, as that's not gonna happen, apparently, I can't complain.
Can't complain about this week's result either. Because for a whoooole other week, I've done precisely nothing to help myself lose weight. There has been lackadaisical eating, there has been fudge and Other Stuff, there has been almost less than zero walking. I wouldn't be surprised to find my ass is growing moss, frankly.
Which is why today found me getting on the Nazi Scales, seeing them tell me I was 17st 6.5, and twisting round to shout at my own ass.
'Seriously? What the fuck? You're full of shit!'
No, really. I got off the scales, got on with things, refused to get entirely dressed because surely, if it knew what was good for it, my ass would be doing its thing any minute, and then I'd have to weigh again to get the real figure.
An hour and a half later, I was actively threatening my own ass.
'Straighten up and fly right, damn you, or I'll get a tapeworm. Then you'll be sorry... Shurrup, I know I'll be sorry too, that's not the point. You're an ass, you have very few jobs to do in your life. Do what you're there for, otherwise I'll have to write a blog about going up another pound and a half this week, and I'll make ya look really bad. I know, I know, you're an ass, it's not like you're exactly a looker to begin with, but gimme a goddamn break here!'
It was more or less when I heard that line, out in the open, bounding off the concrete walls of my office, that I swallowed, took a deep breath, got dressed and made myself some breakfast. When you're threatening your own ass with a tapeworm, it's time to get over yourself and get on with the day.
Still decided to constipation-shame my ass in this blog though. Hey, you have to take your moments of self-determination where you can.
Onward, to more walking and the being of the sensible...
Also maybe a worm...
Tuesday, 12 March 2019
The Fluctuation Factor
My Nazi Scales are taking the piss today.
Post-bathroom weigh-in this morning - 17st 6.25 - same as last week. I'll be honest, I was happy enough to take that on a week which has included d's sdalty peanut fudge, cos dayum!
Padded about a bit in a semi-regular morning daze, listening, of all things, to an audiobook reading of The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius (don't let that fool you, I'm not high-brow, I've moved on to a Doctor Who novelization now). Went back. Scratched myself where I itched. Stepped back on the Nazi Scales.
17st 4.0. Tried that a few times, got consistent results.
'Fuck off,' I muttered. 'There's no way I lost precisely dick-all in seven days, and then 2.25 pounds in half an hour's dicking about. You're just fucking with me now.'
I pulled the scales to a slightly different position on the tiled floor. Stepped on again.
'Fine, see if you like this then,' said the Nazi Scales. 'Can do you a 17st 5.25. That suitably reasonable for you, is it?'
'Thank you,' I muttered - re-doing the weigh-in seveal more times, to make sure I got consistent results.
So. Somewhere between where I was last week and two and a quarter pounds lighter is probably where I aactually am.
For no terribly good reason, I'm going to take the middle reading, and claim 17 stone 5.25 as today's 'actual' reading. Because hell, it has to be something, and it might as well be that - each of the three readings was taken at least three times, for the 'No, really, stop fucking with me' value, so it's as valid as anything else, doesn't push me into entirely unbelievable places, and still allows me to go completely into Smug Mode today at having fudge and carrying on.
So...yeah. Nazi Scales say 17st 5.25 today. IF I were to, y'know, get my shit together and have some properly good weeks of not eating fudge and walking my ass off, I could theoretically push on down into the 16s three weeks from now - which would be something to shove in the face of my diabetic nurse next time I see her. The letter's already arrived, but I'm pretending it hasn't, because my recent blood results have been less than stellar, tending to go from 9ish to 11ish and back again. #MustDoBetter, clearly, at least on that score.
Oh, and talking of walking - went and did it last night. First time in about two weeks, I think. Now, here's the thing. Our flat is in the centre of a very small seaside town. About five, maybe six streets, that's the heart of the town. My usual walking route is ennnntirely flat, along the main street, alont a side street, through a couple of tunnels (see previous entries where I fell and knackered my ankle), and then along a lovely coastal path with the sea on my right, usually from Saundersfoot, via a fancy restaurant called Coast, to the rather gloriously-named Wiseman's Bridge. This is my 'basic' walk - usually when I get cocky about it and want to do more, I divert just before Wiseman's and head into a forest, past an old iron works and on into the wide green yonder.
Last night, I decided to do something different.
I went up the fairly steep-ish hill that leads the way out of the town centre to the other side of us. Saw an interesting uphill street attached to it. Walked up there. And up there. And up and up and up there. Coughed, spluttered, saw spangles, thought briefly 'This is it, this is how I die,' pressed on ever upward.
Eventually, oh, SO eventually, found a downhill road. Came down and down and down and realised I'd taken about an hour to go the 'eight minutes on the flat' journey to Coast.
That's a rubbish way to get to Coast, unless you happen to want to burn calories, flay leg-muscles and stop being able to breathe. So - result. I saw another uphill road. And followed it, up, and up, and up...annnnnnnd down again to Wiseman's. Basically, I leapfrogged my way to Wiseman's Bridge, with more pain, more gasping and more destruction of my will to live. But it actually felt rather good to do it, simply because I haven't done any proper walking for a while.
Came back the flat way though, obviously. I mean, I'm clearly a moron, but even I have limits.
Got in just as the 65mph gusts of the joyfest that is Storm Gareth were beginning to hit us.
So...haven't walked at all today. Haven't, in fact, been outside the door today, apart from a quick pop to the corner shop. Probably won't, now, until Saturday cos aaaaaargh - deadlines.
But before deadlines - The Great British Sewing Bee.
Shurrup, don't judge me, it's compelling...What the hell kind of stitch is that?
Post-bathroom weigh-in this morning - 17st 6.25 - same as last week. I'll be honest, I was happy enough to take that on a week which has included d's sdalty peanut fudge, cos dayum!
Padded about a bit in a semi-regular morning daze, listening, of all things, to an audiobook reading of The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius (don't let that fool you, I'm not high-brow, I've moved on to a Doctor Who novelization now). Went back. Scratched myself where I itched. Stepped back on the Nazi Scales.
17st 4.0. Tried that a few times, got consistent results.
'Fuck off,' I muttered. 'There's no way I lost precisely dick-all in seven days, and then 2.25 pounds in half an hour's dicking about. You're just fucking with me now.'
I pulled the scales to a slightly different position on the tiled floor. Stepped on again.
'Fine, see if you like this then,' said the Nazi Scales. 'Can do you a 17st 5.25. That suitably reasonable for you, is it?'
'Thank you,' I muttered - re-doing the weigh-in seveal more times, to make sure I got consistent results.
So. Somewhere between where I was last week and two and a quarter pounds lighter is probably where I aactually am.
For no terribly good reason, I'm going to take the middle reading, and claim 17 stone 5.25 as today's 'actual' reading. Because hell, it has to be something, and it might as well be that - each of the three readings was taken at least three times, for the 'No, really, stop fucking with me' value, so it's as valid as anything else, doesn't push me into entirely unbelievable places, and still allows me to go completely into Smug Mode today at having fudge and carrying on.
So...yeah. Nazi Scales say 17st 5.25 today. IF I were to, y'know, get my shit together and have some properly good weeks of not eating fudge and walking my ass off, I could theoretically push on down into the 16s three weeks from now - which would be something to shove in the face of my diabetic nurse next time I see her. The letter's already arrived, but I'm pretending it hasn't, because my recent blood results have been less than stellar, tending to go from 9ish to 11ish and back again. #MustDoBetter, clearly, at least on that score.
Oh, and talking of walking - went and did it last night. First time in about two weeks, I think. Now, here's the thing. Our flat is in the centre of a very small seaside town. About five, maybe six streets, that's the heart of the town. My usual walking route is ennnntirely flat, along the main street, alont a side street, through a couple of tunnels (see previous entries where I fell and knackered my ankle), and then along a lovely coastal path with the sea on my right, usually from Saundersfoot, via a fancy restaurant called Coast, to the rather gloriously-named Wiseman's Bridge. This is my 'basic' walk - usually when I get cocky about it and want to do more, I divert just before Wiseman's and head into a forest, past an old iron works and on into the wide green yonder.
Last night, I decided to do something different.
I went up the fairly steep-ish hill that leads the way out of the town centre to the other side of us. Saw an interesting uphill street attached to it. Walked up there. And up there. And up and up and up there. Coughed, spluttered, saw spangles, thought briefly 'This is it, this is how I die,' pressed on ever upward.
Eventually, oh, SO eventually, found a downhill road. Came down and down and down and realised I'd taken about an hour to go the 'eight minutes on the flat' journey to Coast.
That's a rubbish way to get to Coast, unless you happen to want to burn calories, flay leg-muscles and stop being able to breathe. So - result. I saw another uphill road. And followed it, up, and up, and up...annnnnnnd down again to Wiseman's. Basically, I leapfrogged my way to Wiseman's Bridge, with more pain, more gasping and more destruction of my will to live. But it actually felt rather good to do it, simply because I haven't done any proper walking for a while.
Came back the flat way though, obviously. I mean, I'm clearly a moron, but even I have limits.
Got in just as the 65mph gusts of the joyfest that is Storm Gareth were beginning to hit us.
So...haven't walked at all today. Haven't, in fact, been outside the door today, apart from a quick pop to the corner shop. Probably won't, now, until Saturday cos aaaaaargh - deadlines.
But before deadlines - The Great British Sewing Bee.
Shurrup, don't judge me, it's compelling...What the hell kind of stitch is that?
Wednesday, 27 February 2019
The High Wire Step
Sometimes, you lose. Sometimes, you gain.
Sometimes, on weeks where you don't particularly eat sensibly, but DO start walking again toward the tail-end of the seven days, you take a high-wire step. Firmish, possibly wobbly, but when all is said and done, you're still a long way up in the air.
This week, I'm static at 17st 8.25. Which I'm happy enough to take, this week. A wobble-but-not-fall does not leave you smeared all over the sawdust with the lions taking an interest in your entrails. You're still oh-fuck metres up in the air (and in my case, you've still got weak ankles, so it doesn't bode well), but all you've done is progress in the time dimension. Another week older and buggerall's changed, as Tennessee Ernie Ford almost certainly never sang.
Yes, I'm wittering. I do that. A lot.
Bottom line - ate some inadvisable stuff this week, walked for the last two days of the weigh-in week, nothing changed.
Had my face-fuzz all of almost fifteen shaved off almost immediately after weighing-in. Fairly sure that would have lost me at least a quarter-pound, had I managed to have it done before the weigh-in. Feels very odd, but wanted to get rid of it in a gesture of 'Grr, let's get serious about stuff.'
Kind of look like a toddler now. Churchill as a toddler.
Also, hasn't especially worked as a focusing device. Had my first ice-cream of the tourist season later that day.
Yes, in February.
I'd say 'Don't judge me,' but in a blog about trying to lose weight, that's almost entirely what you're here for, so judge away, by all means. Am heading into a deadline-bottleneck, so the likelihood of much walking in the coming week seems slimmer than I am. Any loss next week will have to come from other sources.
Damn, already shaved off all my beard-hair.
Wonder how much toenails weigh...
Sometimes, on weeks where you don't particularly eat sensibly, but DO start walking again toward the tail-end of the seven days, you take a high-wire step. Firmish, possibly wobbly, but when all is said and done, you're still a long way up in the air.
This week, I'm static at 17st 8.25. Which I'm happy enough to take, this week. A wobble-but-not-fall does not leave you smeared all over the sawdust with the lions taking an interest in your entrails. You're still oh-fuck metres up in the air (and in my case, you've still got weak ankles, so it doesn't bode well), but all you've done is progress in the time dimension. Another week older and buggerall's changed, as Tennessee Ernie Ford almost certainly never sang.
Yes, I'm wittering. I do that. A lot.
Bottom line - ate some inadvisable stuff this week, walked for the last two days of the weigh-in week, nothing changed.
Had my face-fuzz all of almost fifteen shaved off almost immediately after weighing-in. Fairly sure that would have lost me at least a quarter-pound, had I managed to have it done before the weigh-in. Feels very odd, but wanted to get rid of it in a gesture of 'Grr, let's get serious about stuff.'
Kind of look like a toddler now. Churchill as a toddler.
Also, hasn't especially worked as a focusing device. Had my first ice-cream of the tourist season later that day.
Yes, in February.
I'd say 'Don't judge me,' but in a blog about trying to lose weight, that's almost entirely what you're here for, so judge away, by all means. Am heading into a deadline-bottleneck, so the likelihood of much walking in the coming week seems slimmer than I am. Any loss next week will have to come from other sources.
Damn, already shaved off all my beard-hair.
Wonder how much toenails weigh...
Tuesday, 15 January 2019
Taking A Pounding
Odd week, this one. Was busy walking early in the week when I twisted an ankle and slammed into the ground. Haven't walked properly since then till today. So that was irritating. Also had a couple of big 'banquet'-style meals over the course of the week, so wasn't exactly expecting to have lost seven pounds this week.
Today's weigh-in has me at 17st 9.75 - down a pound on last week. If I had any kind of energy right now, I'd witter on about how, at this rate, I'll have to cut my annual goal in half, from 104 pounds to 52 pounds, but I'm simply not going to do that because it would just be silly.
As I write this, Madam Secretary is on in the background - it's become a kind of West Wing for the Era of What-The-Fuck - and the doctrine of Suck-It-Upism. On the day of the so-called 'Meaningful Vote' on Brexit, Suck-It-Upism, the philosophy of taking what's real and dealing with it, seems like the mindset of the day, so am sucking it up, and looking at a one pound loss through the lens of it being a loss in spite of x, and y, and z - z being the other bullshit excuse I would have had to make up to justify putting on weight this week.
Screw it - a pound is a pound is a positive snapshot on weigh-in day, and back to walking today. On and on and on we go...one pound at a tiiiiiiiiiiime, sweet Mithras...
Today's weigh-in has me at 17st 9.75 - down a pound on last week. If I had any kind of energy right now, I'd witter on about how, at this rate, I'll have to cut my annual goal in half, from 104 pounds to 52 pounds, but I'm simply not going to do that because it would just be silly.
As I write this, Madam Secretary is on in the background - it's become a kind of West Wing for the Era of What-The-Fuck - and the doctrine of Suck-It-Upism. On the day of the so-called 'Meaningful Vote' on Brexit, Suck-It-Upism, the philosophy of taking what's real and dealing with it, seems like the mindset of the day, so am sucking it up, and looking at a one pound loss through the lens of it being a loss in spite of x, and y, and z - z being the other bullshit excuse I would have had to make up to justify putting on weight this week.
Screw it - a pound is a pound is a positive snapshot on weigh-in day, and back to walking today. On and on and on we go...one pound at a tiiiiiiiiiiime, sweet Mithras...
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
The Daily Disparity
Apologies all, obviously meant to post this blog yesterday.
I've had exactly the kind of week I told you I might have - my Inner Fat Fuck, supported by a positive week's results last week in spite of ice cream and pizza and chips, oh my!, decided that it could get away with mass murder, and let me eat things I haven't for a while - it felt more or less like a week off.
When I stepped on the Nazi Scales yesterday, I'd had a pretty hefty Monday, and the buggers showed me up three-quarters of a pound, and back on the 19 stone 0 mark. While disappointed that I'm not able to defy the realities of physics and biology, I accepted that - it was the equivalent of two weeks of miniscule losing, evaporated for the sake of a week of not really giving a toss. That seemed inherently fair.
Had a much less calorifically hefty day yesterday, even though I was prevented from going for a walk 9as I had been several days last week) through unseasonably slam-you-against-a-wall-sounding winds and rain. This morning, post-bathroom, I got a 'Why the hell not?' wrinkle in my brain, and re-weighed.
18st 12.5 this morning.
Now, there's a quandary for you. The official number has to be yesterday's 19 stone. But today, I'm a whole pound and a half light than that (sounds like nothing, but given the micro-slivers in which this Disappearing appears to be happening, it's rather significant in context). Do I record yesterday's official number and push myself a pound and a half ahead of next week's game? Or do I recognise that I'm one day on and, for instance, three-quarters of a pound lighter than last week's official weigh-in?
For the sake of sanity and credibility of results, I think I have to record the gain of three-quarters of a pound this week, and treat today as a happy outlier, which might allow me to push on further (or might indeed be swallowed up during the course of the week) by next Tuesday. So - back to 19 stone. Joy.
Interestingly though, the BBC just ran a feature on its website about 'where you are on the UK's fat scale.' Being up this high, I expected morbid obesity, where I've been before. Obesity at least. But at 5ft 6, age 46, identifying as male and with today's weight of 18st 12.5, apparently, I'm only 'Overweight,' with a BMI of 29.1. I'm pretty close to the obesity borderline, but officially, just overweight. If one believed in signs and omens, it would seem distinctly as though today was trying to tell me to keep on going. Especially as the wind and rain have also naffed off, replaced with a gentle breeze and a blue sky. So - here we go with a new week.
I've had exactly the kind of week I told you I might have - my Inner Fat Fuck, supported by a positive week's results last week in spite of ice cream and pizza and chips, oh my!, decided that it could get away with mass murder, and let me eat things I haven't for a while - it felt more or less like a week off.
When I stepped on the Nazi Scales yesterday, I'd had a pretty hefty Monday, and the buggers showed me up three-quarters of a pound, and back on the 19 stone 0 mark. While disappointed that I'm not able to defy the realities of physics and biology, I accepted that - it was the equivalent of two weeks of miniscule losing, evaporated for the sake of a week of not really giving a toss. That seemed inherently fair.
Had a much less calorifically hefty day yesterday, even though I was prevented from going for a walk 9as I had been several days last week) through unseasonably slam-you-against-a-wall-sounding winds and rain. This morning, post-bathroom, I got a 'Why the hell not?' wrinkle in my brain, and re-weighed.
18st 12.5 this morning.
Now, there's a quandary for you. The official number has to be yesterday's 19 stone. But today, I'm a whole pound and a half light than that (sounds like nothing, but given the micro-slivers in which this Disappearing appears to be happening, it's rather significant in context). Do I record yesterday's official number and push myself a pound and a half ahead of next week's game? Or do I recognise that I'm one day on and, for instance, three-quarters of a pound lighter than last week's official weigh-in?
For the sake of sanity and credibility of results, I think I have to record the gain of three-quarters of a pound this week, and treat today as a happy outlier, which might allow me to push on further (or might indeed be swallowed up during the course of the week) by next Tuesday. So - back to 19 stone. Joy.
Interestingly though, the BBC just ran a feature on its website about 'where you are on the UK's fat scale.' Being up this high, I expected morbid obesity, where I've been before. Obesity at least. But at 5ft 6, age 46, identifying as male and with today's weight of 18st 12.5, apparently, I'm only 'Overweight,' with a BMI of 29.1. I'm pretty close to the obesity borderline, but officially, just overweight. If one believed in signs and omens, it would seem distinctly as though today was trying to tell me to keep on going. Especially as the wind and rain have also naffed off, replaced with a gentle breeze and a blue sky. So - here we go with a new week.
Tuesday, 20 March 2018
The Probably Shirt and The Unhumble Pound
'Waah!' I sqealed.
'What? What's wrong?' called d from the living room, precipitating a bit of an Ealing comedy in our little flat about what had made me squeal, whether I was alright, and how thrilled I was that she'd found one of my Hellboy T-shirts in a box (Yes, that's right, dammit, I'm old enough to own T-shirts from when the first Hellboy movie was released. People tell me they're now rebooting it. I'm choosing to take that as a mark of being classic and vintage, rather than simply old). But no!
I mean, yes, it's awesome that the Hellboy shirts have come to light from some box or other - and even more awesome that my 'There's Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life' T-shirt has survived and found its way back into the light...
Have I told you about the Probably Shirt before?
Long story short-ish: a few years ago, before messages on buses blotted their copybook forever (*Shakes fist at sky, yells 'BREEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXITTTTTTTT!!!!'*), there was a campaign on a bus, with the simple motto 'There's Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life.' It was started by comedy writer Ariane Sherine (with whom I now get to occasionally interact, as I'm one of her legion of Facebook friends, though if I'm absolutely honest, I'd rather forgotten till just now that the campaign is prrrrobably why I first sent her a Friend Request back in the day), had support from the British Humanist Association, of which when last I checked I was still a member, and it gave me quite some fun, one way and another.
Loved the campaign, supported the campaign, bought the aforementioned T-shirt.
Wore the shirt regularly - got me accosted on High Street Kensington station once by a bloke who less-than-calmly informed me that 'Dawkins is shit and he's gonna burn in Hell,' to which my early-morning, pre-coffee response was 'You may be right, but why are you telling me? D'you think I'm gonna ring him up and say 'Oh, Professor? Some bloke in Kensington says you're shit?'
As I say - pre-coffee response, I wasn't at my wittiest.
Where the shirt reallllly came into its own was when, in spite of anything that might be considered to be 'common sense,' I wore it on a flight over to New York State, via Chicago. On American Airlines.
No-one batted an eye at Heathrow, and we boarded without issue. As usual on a transatlantic flight, I fell asleep, only to be woken by a flight attendant.
'Wha-? Eh? Are we nearly there yet?'
'Sir, I noticed your shirt there.'
I blinked the sleep out of my eyes. d, I think, pretended extra hard she was unconscious.
'Wha-? Oh. Oh yes?' I asked.
'Sir, I happen to know there actually is a god.'
'O...K. That's....nice for you?' I said, hoping the rising inflection would take the sting out of my disbelief for her. She pursed her lips - apparently the sting was still intact - and then moved on.
Well, that was odd, wasn't it, boys and girls? I thought, humphing over onto my other hip and trying to get some more shut-eye.
Some time passed. Possibly, some drool escaped down my chin, because fuck human dignity when you have to sleep in public. Then someone gently shook my shoulder.
'The pheasant's in the collander! The collander!' I assured half the plane. When my eyes worked again, they showed me that my friend the attendant was back.
'Hello, sir. Would you like to join me in the back?'
'Err...what?'
'I've got a buddhist gentleman, a muslim, a hindu and myself as a Christian having a discussion back there about why there definitely is a god, if you'd like to come join us.'
'Errr...yyyyeah,' I said. I could feel d Being Asleep with all her might. 'I think I'll skip it, if it's all the same to you,' I decided. 'Could I maybe get a Diet Coke instead?'
At security in Chicago O'Hare, some guys with guns told me I 'got balls, wearing that thing in this country.' They didn't seem to regard having those particular balls as a bad thing as such, they just wanted me to know, in case I'd been worried, that balls were in my possession, and apparently on display, as proven by the wearing of the shirt on American soil.
And then, having cleared customs, and being just about ready to transfer to a flight to Buffalo, a lovely Miss Marple-style old lady excused herself, saying she'd noticed the shirt.
'Yes?' I asked, trying to maintain the illusion of Being A Nice Human Being.
'Yes. I just wanted you to know, I'm a Christian, but I respect your right to wear that shirt absolutely,' she told me. I wanted to hug her, but I figured I might crush her if I did - she really was frail and tiny. But I thanked her for taking the time to reach out in sisterhood to someone who had a different position to her. I doffed my hat (Always have a hat, it makes doffing it much more straightforward, and if you try and doff your hair it just looks weird). Made me really rather wish I'd been as good as she was and joined that inter-faith meeting at the back of the plane. Ah well...
It was later on that trip, while at dinner with the folks of some friends that, recalling these events, I was asked perhaps the oddest question in my life so far, by one of the sisters of the family.
'So...' she said, intent and earnest. '...do you...y'know...have Christians over there in England?'
I couldn't for the life of me work out if she was serious for a moment.
Yes, she was.
Anyhow, when we got home, d politely asked me to retire the shirt from my regular wardrobe, and because it's a T-shirt and she's my wife, I did. To be honest, I think she was just sick of it being 'A Thing.' But now, on opening boxes in the new place (yes, still - we really have a lot of stuff!), the Probably Shirt has come to light again, and, much to my surprise, gone into the wash.
'How come?' I asked.
'I'm much less worried about you wearing it round here than in London,' she explained. 'I mean, it'll still get on lots of people's nerves, but at least they're less likely to be armed. And if they want to push you under a train here...it's harder work than it would have been on the Tube.'
She's not wrong. We live in Railway-Children-On-Sea now - you have to jump up and down and wave at the driver to get a train to stop. And of course if anyone wanted to push me under a train these days, they'd kinda have to give me a lift to the station first.
Annnnnyway - thrilled though I am to get the Hellboy and the Probably Shirt back in rotation, that wasn't why I'd squealed.
I'd squealed because it's weigh-in day, and I'd expected to go up, following a week of editing deadlines, grim weather, even grimmer determination and Eating All The Pies. But no - down a single, unhumble pound, to 19 stone 1 pound.
I've now been crawling downward by the most ridiculous amounts - a quarter-pound here, a half-pound there - since I started Disappearing again, and have yet to even get the water-loss bump that usually comes in the first two weeks. And while it seems I'm destined never to see an 18 in the Stones column again, this unexpected pound does mean the first half-stone has been shed, of the many that need to be dissolved. Hence the squeal that led to much T-shirt discussion.
Here's to walking more in my kickass Probably Shirt, eating less and cracking through the crust of 19 stone next week. Maybe.
Oh, PS - just did a Google search for an image of the Probably Shirt. It's now on Redbubble with designer pre-fading, listed as a 'Classic T-Shirt.'
See - told you! Classic. Not old...
'What? What's wrong?' called d from the living room, precipitating a bit of an Ealing comedy in our little flat about what had made me squeal, whether I was alright, and how thrilled I was that she'd found one of my Hellboy T-shirts in a box (Yes, that's right, dammit, I'm old enough to own T-shirts from when the first Hellboy movie was released. People tell me they're now rebooting it. I'm choosing to take that as a mark of being classic and vintage, rather than simply old). But no!
I mean, yes, it's awesome that the Hellboy shirts have come to light from some box or other - and even more awesome that my 'There's Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life' T-shirt has survived and found its way back into the light...
Have I told you about the Probably Shirt before?
Long story short-ish: a few years ago, before messages on buses blotted their copybook forever (*Shakes fist at sky, yells 'BREEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXITTTTTTTT!!!!'*), there was a campaign on a bus, with the simple motto 'There's Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life.' It was started by comedy writer Ariane Sherine (with whom I now get to occasionally interact, as I'm one of her legion of Facebook friends, though if I'm absolutely honest, I'd rather forgotten till just now that the campaign is prrrrobably why I first sent her a Friend Request back in the day), had support from the British Humanist Association, of which when last I checked I was still a member, and it gave me quite some fun, one way and another.
Loved the campaign, supported the campaign, bought the aforementioned T-shirt.
Wore the shirt regularly - got me accosted on High Street Kensington station once by a bloke who less-than-calmly informed me that 'Dawkins is shit and he's gonna burn in Hell,' to which my early-morning, pre-coffee response was 'You may be right, but why are you telling me? D'you think I'm gonna ring him up and say 'Oh, Professor? Some bloke in Kensington says you're shit?'
As I say - pre-coffee response, I wasn't at my wittiest.
Where the shirt reallllly came into its own was when, in spite of anything that might be considered to be 'common sense,' I wore it on a flight over to New York State, via Chicago. On American Airlines.
No-one batted an eye at Heathrow, and we boarded without issue. As usual on a transatlantic flight, I fell asleep, only to be woken by a flight attendant.
'Wha-? Eh? Are we nearly there yet?'
'Sir, I noticed your shirt there.'
I blinked the sleep out of my eyes. d, I think, pretended extra hard she was unconscious.
'Wha-? Oh. Oh yes?' I asked.
'Sir, I happen to know there actually is a god.'
'O...K. That's....nice for you?' I said, hoping the rising inflection would take the sting out of my disbelief for her. She pursed her lips - apparently the sting was still intact - and then moved on.
Well, that was odd, wasn't it, boys and girls? I thought, humphing over onto my other hip and trying to get some more shut-eye.
Some time passed. Possibly, some drool escaped down my chin, because fuck human dignity when you have to sleep in public. Then someone gently shook my shoulder.
'The pheasant's in the collander! The collander!' I assured half the plane. When my eyes worked again, they showed me that my friend the attendant was back.
'Hello, sir. Would you like to join me in the back?'
'Err...what?'
'I've got a buddhist gentleman, a muslim, a hindu and myself as a Christian having a discussion back there about why there definitely is a god, if you'd like to come join us.'
'Errr...yyyyeah,' I said. I could feel d Being Asleep with all her might. 'I think I'll skip it, if it's all the same to you,' I decided. 'Could I maybe get a Diet Coke instead?'
At security in Chicago O'Hare, some guys with guns told me I 'got balls, wearing that thing in this country.' They didn't seem to regard having those particular balls as a bad thing as such, they just wanted me to know, in case I'd been worried, that balls were in my possession, and apparently on display, as proven by the wearing of the shirt on American soil.
And then, having cleared customs, and being just about ready to transfer to a flight to Buffalo, a lovely Miss Marple-style old lady excused herself, saying she'd noticed the shirt.
'Yes?' I asked, trying to maintain the illusion of Being A Nice Human Being.
'Yes. I just wanted you to know, I'm a Christian, but I respect your right to wear that shirt absolutely,' she told me. I wanted to hug her, but I figured I might crush her if I did - she really was frail and tiny. But I thanked her for taking the time to reach out in sisterhood to someone who had a different position to her. I doffed my hat (Always have a hat, it makes doffing it much more straightforward, and if you try and doff your hair it just looks weird). Made me really rather wish I'd been as good as she was and joined that inter-faith meeting at the back of the plane. Ah well...
It was later on that trip, while at dinner with the folks of some friends that, recalling these events, I was asked perhaps the oddest question in my life so far, by one of the sisters of the family.
'So...' she said, intent and earnest. '...do you...y'know...have Christians over there in England?'
I couldn't for the life of me work out if she was serious for a moment.
Yes, she was.
Anyhow, when we got home, d politely asked me to retire the shirt from my regular wardrobe, and because it's a T-shirt and she's my wife, I did. To be honest, I think she was just sick of it being 'A Thing.' But now, on opening boxes in the new place (yes, still - we really have a lot of stuff!), the Probably Shirt has come to light again, and, much to my surprise, gone into the wash.
'How come?' I asked.
'I'm much less worried about you wearing it round here than in London,' she explained. 'I mean, it'll still get on lots of people's nerves, but at least they're less likely to be armed. And if they want to push you under a train here...it's harder work than it would have been on the Tube.'
She's not wrong. We live in Railway-Children-On-Sea now - you have to jump up and down and wave at the driver to get a train to stop. And of course if anyone wanted to push me under a train these days, they'd kinda have to give me a lift to the station first.
Annnnnyway - thrilled though I am to get the Hellboy and the Probably Shirt back in rotation, that wasn't why I'd squealed.
I'd squealed because it's weigh-in day, and I'd expected to go up, following a week of editing deadlines, grim weather, even grimmer determination and Eating All The Pies. But no - down a single, unhumble pound, to 19 stone 1 pound.
I've now been crawling downward by the most ridiculous amounts - a quarter-pound here, a half-pound there - since I started Disappearing again, and have yet to even get the water-loss bump that usually comes in the first two weeks. And while it seems I'm destined never to see an 18 in the Stones column again, this unexpected pound does mean the first half-stone has been shed, of the many that need to be dissolved. Hence the squeal that led to much T-shirt discussion.
Here's to walking more in my kickass Probably Shirt, eating less and cracking through the crust of 19 stone next week. Maybe.
Oh, PS - just did a Google search for an image of the Probably Shirt. It's now on Redbubble with designer pre-fading, listed as a 'Classic T-Shirt.'
See - told you! Classic. Not old...
Tuesday, 27 February 2018
The Nail-Cutters Cheat
Ohhhh the tediousness.
Weigh-in today = 19st 2.75. Down another teeeeny half-pound this week. I could probably have lost more by cutting my toenails. Come to that, thinking about it, I had a haircut this week, dammit, that's where the half-pound went.
Strange week from a Disappearing perspective - it included a pizza, a regular cereal breakfast of rather too large a size, at least a couple of cereal suppers after dinner and a weekend of sitting shivering in the house going 'Fuck that shit' as the icy herals of the so-called 'Beast From the East weather system blew through and exercised the waves something fierce. So it's not like I have any damn thing to complain about - in fact, I really rather expected to have gone UP this week, what with one thing and another, and might well have done had I not had the joy that is digestive cramps last night.
Still...there is is. Inching, crawling, clawing my way towards the 19 stone border, via indolence, pizza and digestive cramps. One can't help feel there's probably a better way to go about things than this. Hey ho, another week anothe infinitesimal move in the right direction.
Weigh-in today = 19st 2.75. Down another teeeeny half-pound this week. I could probably have lost more by cutting my toenails. Come to that, thinking about it, I had a haircut this week, dammit, that's where the half-pound went.
Strange week from a Disappearing perspective - it included a pizza, a regular cereal breakfast of rather too large a size, at least a couple of cereal suppers after dinner and a weekend of sitting shivering in the house going 'Fuck that shit' as the icy herals of the so-called 'Beast From the East weather system blew through and exercised the waves something fierce. So it's not like I have any damn thing to complain about - in fact, I really rather expected to have gone UP this week, what with one thing and another, and might well have done had I not had the joy that is digestive cramps last night.
Still...there is is. Inching, crawling, clawing my way towards the 19 stone border, via indolence, pizza and digestive cramps. One can't help feel there's probably a better way to go about things than this. Hey ho, another week anothe infinitesimal move in the right direction.
Thursday, 25 January 2018
The Quest For Sprouts
'So...whaddaya want to do today?'
'Well, I'm volunteering at the community centre at 2.30. Other than that...' There was a tiny sigh from d. 'We should go shopping.'
'Must we?'
'I can't keep giving you stewed tomatoes every night.'
'You really can. I love 'em.' (I'd eaten two bowlfuls last night, because, y'know, gluttony).
'I know you do. But you'll have rampant acid if I keep feeding you those.'
'Ach...'
All of this was in bed this morning, before either of us had dared peek a toe out from under the duvet.
The wind and driving rain battered against the windows.
'How about sprouts?' I bartered. 'There's always sprouts.'
'There isn't,' murmured d. 'I looked in Tesco yesterday, not a sprout to be had. That's why we'll have to go shopping.'
'Ah, but I tried the Spar,' I said, referring to a chain corner store which also now functions as the local post office. 'They have frozen button sprouts there.'
The wind howled, as if on cue.
'So...we don't have to get dressed and go out there? Not yet, anyway?'
'Nope,' I said. 'I'll go walking later. And as Spar is my witness, we'll never go sproutless again.'
'Awesome,' said d, snuggling under the duvet for another couple of minutes.
So - hoorah for flavour diversity while Disappearing - went walking (it had mellowed significantly by then, though for some reason not unconnected with walking across beaches and streams, I still put me wellies on. The beach clearly counts as a short cut, cos I only managed 7719 steps todday), got sprouts, brought sprouts home, laid them gently in the freezer. We were all out of velvet cushions, sadly, but it was that sort of a moment.
I admit it's not much of a heroic quest, but be honest, if I told you about the dragon waiting to buy postal orders and feast upon the virgins of the village, or the dwarvish slate miners protesting against the new speed restrictions on the road at Wiseman's Bridge, or the Hellmouth under the Lounge coffee bar...well, you'd only think I was making it up, wouldn't you?
'Well, I'm volunteering at the community centre at 2.30. Other than that...' There was a tiny sigh from d. 'We should go shopping.'
'Must we?'
'I can't keep giving you stewed tomatoes every night.'
'You really can. I love 'em.' (I'd eaten two bowlfuls last night, because, y'know, gluttony).
'I know you do. But you'll have rampant acid if I keep feeding you those.'
'Ach...'
All of this was in bed this morning, before either of us had dared peek a toe out from under the duvet.
The wind and driving rain battered against the windows.
'How about sprouts?' I bartered. 'There's always sprouts.'
'There isn't,' murmured d. 'I looked in Tesco yesterday, not a sprout to be had. That's why we'll have to go shopping.'
'Ah, but I tried the Spar,' I said, referring to a chain corner store which also now functions as the local post office. 'They have frozen button sprouts there.'
The wind howled, as if on cue.
'So...we don't have to get dressed and go out there? Not yet, anyway?'
'Nope,' I said. 'I'll go walking later. And as Spar is my witness, we'll never go sproutless again.'
'Awesome,' said d, snuggling under the duvet for another couple of minutes.
So - hoorah for flavour diversity while Disappearing - went walking (it had mellowed significantly by then, though for some reason not unconnected with walking across beaches and streams, I still put me wellies on. The beach clearly counts as a short cut, cos I only managed 7719 steps todday), got sprouts, brought sprouts home, laid them gently in the freezer. We were all out of velvet cushions, sadly, but it was that sort of a moment.
I admit it's not much of a heroic quest, but be honest, if I told you about the dragon waiting to buy postal orders and feast upon the virgins of the village, or the dwarvish slate miners protesting against the new speed restrictions on the road at Wiseman's Bridge, or the Hellmouth under the Lounge coffee bar...well, you'd only think I was making it up, wouldn't you?
Tuesday, 24 January 2017
The Upside Of Alt-Facts
We now live in a surreal world. The world of Trump and Cronies (previously known as the US Government, but surely no-one can call them that with a straight face and a steady stomach), has just brought us the delightful phrase 'alternative facts.'
Like 'plausible deniability,' this is a thing that has never previously been quantified, but from the moment you hear it, you know it's going to become a 'Thing,' and that while in some shadowy Twilight Zone way it may have existed previously, having been given a name, it's going to more definitely become a fact of actual day-to-day life and your experience of it.
It's probably worth remembering that 'alternative facts' have been a thing much longer than people realise. Nixon said he wasn't a crook, which is about as alternative a fact as you can get. Clinton said he didn't have sexual relations with that woman, which is a frankly ungrateful thing to say about someone whose dress you've ruined, and also an alternative fact. The most recent iteration only really lodges in the brain because the circumstances in which it's been deployed are so pathetic - the alternative facts being deployed so early into the Orange Emperor's reign are basically 'my crowd wasn't smaller than your crowd, so nehh!'
Which is very presidential behaviour.
See? Anyone can do the 'alternative fact' thing.
In which connection, I should like to announce that far from being entirely static after a week of walking my ass off, I have lost three pounds, and now weigh 18 stone 10 pounds. I should very much like to do that, in fact, and so, in the Empire of the Disappearing Man, this alternative fact is now...fact.
In the Empire of Agreed and Verifiable Reality, as policed by the likes of the Nazi Scales, this alternative fact remains very much more alternative than I would like, and my morning weigh-in today had me entirely immobile at 18st 13 pounds.
So you see, as much as we might decry them in our political landscape, there's most definitely an upside to alternative facts. I'm alternatively happy, and factually less so. in the Empire of Verifiable Reality, something needs to change about my routine - there needs to be less intake and more expenditure, in all probability, or at the very least, as d suggested, there needs to be a shift in timescales. Currently, I'm waiting till my day-job is done at 5pm, walking for something in the region of two hours, and by the time I'm sitting down to eat, it's more like 8pm, after which I do precisely nothing in terms of exercise for the rest of the night. Perhaps a shift to earlier eating, followed by exercise, would have a more energetic, less sedentary effect on my system. At any rate, I'm more than willing to try that, because the thing about alternative facts is that once you know they're alternative facts - or even, really, once you suspect they're alternative facts - they have a limited and diminishing satisfaction index. One cannot be entirely satisfied if one knows one is lying to oneself - at least, not without a larger and more all-encompassing personality disoreder than I have, which I suppose is one of many complicated reasons why I'll never be leader of the free world. Ho hum - back to Disappearing we go then.
Like 'plausible deniability,' this is a thing that has never previously been quantified, but from the moment you hear it, you know it's going to become a 'Thing,' and that while in some shadowy Twilight Zone way it may have existed previously, having been given a name, it's going to more definitely become a fact of actual day-to-day life and your experience of it.
It's probably worth remembering that 'alternative facts' have been a thing much longer than people realise. Nixon said he wasn't a crook, which is about as alternative a fact as you can get. Clinton said he didn't have sexual relations with that woman, which is a frankly ungrateful thing to say about someone whose dress you've ruined, and also an alternative fact. The most recent iteration only really lodges in the brain because the circumstances in which it's been deployed are so pathetic - the alternative facts being deployed so early into the Orange Emperor's reign are basically 'my crowd wasn't smaller than your crowd, so nehh!'
Which is very presidential behaviour.
See? Anyone can do the 'alternative fact' thing.
In which connection, I should like to announce that far from being entirely static after a week of walking my ass off, I have lost three pounds, and now weigh 18 stone 10 pounds. I should very much like to do that, in fact, and so, in the Empire of the Disappearing Man, this alternative fact is now...fact.
In the Empire of Agreed and Verifiable Reality, as policed by the likes of the Nazi Scales, this alternative fact remains very much more alternative than I would like, and my morning weigh-in today had me entirely immobile at 18st 13 pounds.
So you see, as much as we might decry them in our political landscape, there's most definitely an upside to alternative facts. I'm alternatively happy, and factually less so. in the Empire of Verifiable Reality, something needs to change about my routine - there needs to be less intake and more expenditure, in all probability, or at the very least, as d suggested, there needs to be a shift in timescales. Currently, I'm waiting till my day-job is done at 5pm, walking for something in the region of two hours, and by the time I'm sitting down to eat, it's more like 8pm, after which I do precisely nothing in terms of exercise for the rest of the night. Perhaps a shift to earlier eating, followed by exercise, would have a more energetic, less sedentary effect on my system. At any rate, I'm more than willing to try that, because the thing about alternative facts is that once you know they're alternative facts - or even, really, once you suspect they're alternative facts - they have a limited and diminishing satisfaction index. One cannot be entirely satisfied if one knows one is lying to oneself - at least, not without a larger and more all-encompassing personality disoreder than I have, which I suppose is one of many complicated reasons why I'll never be leader of the free world. Ho hum - back to Disappearing we go then.
Monday, 16 January 2017
The Obsessive Compulsive Potential - Part 2: 12/1/17
Hello folks - been absent for a couple of days, but the blog entries have written themselves on the inside of my skull, so just catching up now.
When last we saw our Disappearing Man, he'd been brought a mug of hot chocolate, had a bizarre internal dialogue between Fat-Self and Disappeaing-Self and determined not to worry about it.
The thing is, that very night, while out on a walk and stopping in to what is now a familiar gas station, the voices of temptation actually WERE much more potent than I'd expected. 'Oh go onnnn,' whispered a chunky Kit Kat from the shelves. 'You might as well, you've got a taste for it now. Chocolatey goodnesssss...'
If you've never imagined a chunky Kit Kat as the serpent in the Garden of Evil, you probably won't understand the allure of really pretty shitty, ethically dubious chocolate. That's something non-Disappearers never seem to quite understand. They think when you have cravings for illicit stuff, it's probably for the really good quality stuff. And to be fair, sometimes it is. But I've had many a long dark night of the soul pondering the attractions of really quite ghastly chocolate, or carbohydrate, or whatever. It's equivalent, really, to thinking an alcoholic must get champagne cravings, or a junkie can only really really want the finest Peruvian cocaine, snorted out of a hooker's ass-crack.
Nono, our pleasures are, for the most part, mundane and pedestrian, but it's precisely that mundanity that forges links in our synapses and makes us WANT them.
Probably needless to say, but I eschewed the cheap seductive delights of the chunky Kit Kat from Hell. I eschewed the malty deliciousness of the slab of Maltesers chocolate too (again, AS chocolate, a shockingly shitty invention, the slab of Malteser, but still, sometimes, you just want to ram one down your throat until you choke. (I once had quite a disgusting moment on a railway platform in the north of England with a couple of 'Malteaster' bunnies. We don't speak about it. No really, leave it alone...)).
Nevertheless, it's interesting, to me at least, that the idea that I might have transgressed one of my self-imposed and clearly whacko rules about what's verboten led me to feel the temptation to throw myself heartily off the Disappearing wagon and into a pile of shitty chocolate. Still - let's see what happens next.
When last we saw our Disappearing Man, he'd been brought a mug of hot chocolate, had a bizarre internal dialogue between Fat-Self and Disappeaing-Self and determined not to worry about it.
The thing is, that very night, while out on a walk and stopping in to what is now a familiar gas station, the voices of temptation actually WERE much more potent than I'd expected. 'Oh go onnnn,' whispered a chunky Kit Kat from the shelves. 'You might as well, you've got a taste for it now. Chocolatey goodnesssss...'
If you've never imagined a chunky Kit Kat as the serpent in the Garden of Evil, you probably won't understand the allure of really pretty shitty, ethically dubious chocolate. That's something non-Disappearers never seem to quite understand. They think when you have cravings for illicit stuff, it's probably for the really good quality stuff. And to be fair, sometimes it is. But I've had many a long dark night of the soul pondering the attractions of really quite ghastly chocolate, or carbohydrate, or whatever. It's equivalent, really, to thinking an alcoholic must get champagne cravings, or a junkie can only really really want the finest Peruvian cocaine, snorted out of a hooker's ass-crack.
Nono, our pleasures are, for the most part, mundane and pedestrian, but it's precisely that mundanity that forges links in our synapses and makes us WANT them.
Probably needless to say, but I eschewed the cheap seductive delights of the chunky Kit Kat from Hell. I eschewed the malty deliciousness of the slab of Maltesers chocolate too (again, AS chocolate, a shockingly shitty invention, the slab of Malteser, but still, sometimes, you just want to ram one down your throat until you choke. (I once had quite a disgusting moment on a railway platform in the north of England with a couple of 'Malteaster' bunnies. We don't speak about it. No really, leave it alone...)).
Nevertheless, it's interesting, to me at least, that the idea that I might have transgressed one of my self-imposed and clearly whacko rules about what's verboten led me to feel the temptation to throw myself heartily off the Disappearing wagon and into a pile of shitty chocolate. Still - let's see what happens next.
Tuesday, 3 January 2017
The Madness of Disappearing Mathematics
Arrrrrrgh!
Hoping to see an 18, did I say?
This morning, in the positively chilly air that swpet majestically through our bathroom on its way to somewhere less scary, I weighed in, pre-bathroom (if you take my meaning), at 19st 1.5.
I waited.
And waited.
And peed. And weighed in again, just before lunchtime. Having pulled on a pair of heavy socks as protection against the cold, I then weighed in at 19st 2.25!
I discarded the socks, swearing calumny and a world of evils on their woolen soles. 19st 0.75.
Three-quarters of a pound away from the border, still 'pre-bathroom.' That, gentle observers of this Disappearing madness, is what I'm recording as my official weigh-in weight on this first weekly weigh-in. Down 6.75 pounds this week, still presumably burning up the excess stored water in my system.
Now let's be clear - this is pretty damn good. There's plenty to celebrate in this - it means since I began my week of 'pre-Disappearing' having seen a result of 20 stone, I've lost 13.25 pounds, probably all of it stored as excess water. But let's also be clear about the Disappearing mindset. This is one frustrating-as-hell result. One pound would have put me in the 18s, which, even if it's by the tiniest squeak, you need to believe me, feels a whole hell of a lot different to being in the 20s. As far as the difference is concerned, you might as well be talking centuries as stones.
And here's the extra-sepecially galling thing. I then had lunch, and for that lunch I had pizza. really quite a lot of pizza - there being no better time to have a heavy-ass day than post-weigh-in on a Tuesday, and there also at the moment being a shitload of really tasty homemade pizza left in our house.
So - much nomming of the pizza. Even before I was done, the urge to be 'post-bathroom' was upon me, and once I'd finished the really rather quite a lot of pizza, I fulfilled the urge in a rather prodigious manner. And yes, I weighed again.
Because I'm a monomaniacal nightmare, that's why.
After the enormo-pizza lunch, and the prodigious purge, I evened out at 19st 2.
Now, you're probably beginning to get a sense for the nature of my insanity, so it won't come as too much of a surprise to you to learn that as this aftenoon wears on, I'm inwardly bemoaning the fact that I didn't weigh the pizza before I ate it, so that I could claim with more legitimacy than hope that 'really' (and please not the absurdity of that 'really'), I'm under the 19 stone mark. I'm not of course, the official number today is 19st 0.75, but yes, everything in me (with the possible exception of the pizza) wants to claim this landmark. This is the madness of Disappearing Mathematics.
At some point, prrrrobably quite soon, I shall be needing to be hit on the head with something fairly heavy to break me out of this cycle of insane addition and subtraction. But for now, people tell me there are other important things to do besides worry about the weight of pizza versus the weight of really-not-pizza-anymore.
They're wrong of course, but I've found they go away faster if you smile and nod and pretend to agree with them.
So this is me, smiling and nodding and pretending to agree with them, and not obsessing at all about the calculable weight of cooked dough...
Tuesday, 29 March 2016
The Gumshoe Principle
Second day, second five mile walk. Cos, y'know, that's such fun.
Can honestly tell you, at several points along yesterday's reintroduction the the business of going places by foot for the simple act of going places and coming back, travelling, as it were, for the sake of travelling, I was fairly convinced I was dying.
Today there were fewer of those, but more points at which I just felt singularly cheesed off in the doing of it - possibly the result of added drizzle, so there being less of a Snow White, Jimminy Cricket Disneyfied lightness of soul to the whole thing, and more of a Philip Marlowe, Didius Falco, thank you all you gods of gumshoes trudge about it instead.
Still, it's done, and for better or worse, in the last 28 hours, I've walked ten miles, about which if you'd asked me yesterday morning, I would have told you was a physical impossibility for me right now. If nothing else, the Gumshoe Principle of having to walk somewhere to be able to say you've done something, and once you've started out, having no option under the stars but to walk the hell back, gives one a certain Eeyore-like fatalism about the whole thing. At some point between A and B, X amount of distance will have been covered, carved out of the day by one's own feet.
I should be grateful, really - at the point at which I had a Snow White song in my heart about the idea of going walking today, the heavens opened and pissed all over the idea. 'Get thee to an exercise bike,' suggested d, and that looked like being the plan for a while. Then she discovered she needed a bit of kit for work, so I had to walk it over to her in any case. The sky was vaguely blueish, like a young child trying to be brave about the suffering of the day after a crying jag. So I chanced it down the Taff Trail, sans coat, sans hat, sans thankfully not everything. it opened up again before I'd hit my turnaround point. Had a couple of distinctly iffy Doctor Who audio stories for company, which perhaps didn't power my steps on, but at least allowed me to put my mind in neutral, which is as good a way of covering distance as any other when you get right down to it.
Oh yeah, you'll want to know weigh-in figures, won't you?
Well, they're odd.
This morning, pre-bathroom, I weighed in at 19st 2.75. Which is less than I expected. Normally of course, I would never have taken this as the final weigh-in figure, but if I tell you that at 20.40 there has yet to be an opportunity to record a post-bathroom figure, you can see I have little in the way of options.
So on we go to Wednesday, with a stomach that feels full and bloated (Bran flakes, bananas, a chicken and bacon slice and a small pot of rice pudding, since you ask), feet that feel disorientated, and like they've forgotten how to be feet, and a due sense of exhaustion and achiness
Can honestly tell you, at several points along yesterday's reintroduction the the business of going places by foot for the simple act of going places and coming back, travelling, as it were, for the sake of travelling, I was fairly convinced I was dying.
Today there were fewer of those, but more points at which I just felt singularly cheesed off in the doing of it - possibly the result of added drizzle, so there being less of a Snow White, Jimminy Cricket Disneyfied lightness of soul to the whole thing, and more of a Philip Marlowe, Didius Falco, thank you all you gods of gumshoes trudge about it instead.
Still, it's done, and for better or worse, in the last 28 hours, I've walked ten miles, about which if you'd asked me yesterday morning, I would have told you was a physical impossibility for me right now. If nothing else, the Gumshoe Principle of having to walk somewhere to be able to say you've done something, and once you've started out, having no option under the stars but to walk the hell back, gives one a certain Eeyore-like fatalism about the whole thing. At some point between A and B, X amount of distance will have been covered, carved out of the day by one's own feet.
I should be grateful, really - at the point at which I had a Snow White song in my heart about the idea of going walking today, the heavens opened and pissed all over the idea. 'Get thee to an exercise bike,' suggested d, and that looked like being the plan for a while. Then she discovered she needed a bit of kit for work, so I had to walk it over to her in any case. The sky was vaguely blueish, like a young child trying to be brave about the suffering of the day after a crying jag. So I chanced it down the Taff Trail, sans coat, sans hat, sans thankfully not everything. it opened up again before I'd hit my turnaround point. Had a couple of distinctly iffy Doctor Who audio stories for company, which perhaps didn't power my steps on, but at least allowed me to put my mind in neutral, which is as good a way of covering distance as any other when you get right down to it.
Oh yeah, you'll want to know weigh-in figures, won't you?
Well, they're odd.
This morning, pre-bathroom, I weighed in at 19st 2.75. Which is less than I expected. Normally of course, I would never have taken this as the final weigh-in figure, but if I tell you that at 20.40 there has yet to be an opportunity to record a post-bathroom figure, you can see I have little in the way of options.
So on we go to Wednesday, with a stomach that feels full and bloated (Bran flakes, bananas, a chicken and bacon slice and a small pot of rice pudding, since you ask), feet that feel disorientated, and like they've forgotten how to be feet, and a due sense of exhaustion and achiness
Saturday, 9 May 2015
The Merthyr Raven
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.
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