Inspired (for which pretty much read 'pissed off') by yesterday's unfortunate weigh-in result, I determined that tonight I would re-start the longer, 11 or 12,000 step walks.
Normally, I do this with my phone, because a) it's the 21st century, who goes out for long walks in the dark without their phone?, but mostly b) the step-counter's on the phone, and it monitors my daily walking so I can chart my daily, weekly and monthy achievements - oh make no mistake about it, there's no end to my nerdiness.
Tonight, in the deep, encompassing dark with a fine Valleys attempt at swirling fog for atmosphere, I set out on my long walk. Got past most of the main uphill sections, reached Dowlais, and decided to check my step-count, which is as good an excuse for a momentary breather as any other. Put my hand in my pocket, only to come up empty.
Crap. Had the phone, which is almost chunky enough to be an 80s housebrick, fallen out of my fairly loose pockets somewhere along the line, or was it still at home somewhere? I'll just call d and find out, I thought, reaching into my pocket for my -
Goddamnsonofabitchandbastard!
Here's a weird note. I seriously considered turning round and coming back home, because, jeez, who can be outdoors, safely, wihtout a phone these days?
Only by strenuously reminding myself I'd done it for more than twenty years before getting my first mobile phone, cos yes folks, I really am that old, did I push on.
It's probably worth mentioning that in the darkness and poor town lighting, and swirling fog, my audio companion of choice tonight was the beginning of a fourteen-hour unabridged reading of Dracula.
Now in no way did I move faster because of the narrative of vampires and wolves and suchlike nonsense (from what I can see so far, Dracula's more like a psychological thriller as Jonathan 'Emo Much?' Harker lets his fears drive him stark screaming mad), but there's a certain gothic frisson to walking round a town shrouded in darkness and mist while the narrative unfolds in your head, and you realise that if you get jumped, as you might, and as I have been in this town, you can't call for help. Powered my way around the route and home. The phone was sitting innocently on my desk, going 'Whaaaat?' Git.
Anyhow, the push to push the Nazi Scale numbers back in the right direction has begun - now powered by vampires!
Wednesday, 18 January 2017
The Nazi Grudge - 17/1/16
Humph.
I have not been walking as much or as far these last few days as I had last week, and so have created for myself a kind of false plateau by the simple expedient of not dedicating enough time or effort to the bloody-mindedness of Disappearing.
Nevertheless, I was irritated by the Nazi Scales this morning. The last few nights, when I've weighed before going to bed (yes, I'm perfectly aware I shouldn't be doing that, so as to maintain a positive, sunny outlook on my weightloss, but really, you have to ask - do I strike you as Captain Sunshine?), I've been slightly over the 19 stone border, falling back under the border come the morning by more or less the simple process of evaporation it seems.
Last night though - after a fairly hefty meal including sausage (d's secret weapon against the joys of occasional constipation that come with Disappearing and not drinking enough water), and roast potato (Yes, I know - it's best not to ask - if the recent hot chocolate thing hasn't clued you in yet, my walls of division between what I allow myself and what I don't are serious, but frequently entirely illogical) - I weighed 18st 13.75 going to bed, and comforted myself that with the usual couple of pounds of overnight evaporation, plus the weight of the food I could expect to be gone from me before I weighed, I might confidently expect to be 'really' weighing 18st 10 this morning, my stated and intended goal.
Imagine my chagrin then, when morning came and in one of the first genuinely post-bathroom weigh-ins since we began again, I checked in at 18 st 13.
It feels neither right nor entirely fair, but let's not cry about it. Somehow, this week, I've not only not lost anything, I've regained an official pound. More than anything, that's tiresome because it means there's work to do again that was already done, albeit it's just the weight of a substantial pee.
So - on we go, with an occasional glare at the Nazi Scales in passing. A little bit longer, a little bit further to go.
I have not been walking as much or as far these last few days as I had last week, and so have created for myself a kind of false plateau by the simple expedient of not dedicating enough time or effort to the bloody-mindedness of Disappearing.
Nevertheless, I was irritated by the Nazi Scales this morning. The last few nights, when I've weighed before going to bed (yes, I'm perfectly aware I shouldn't be doing that, so as to maintain a positive, sunny outlook on my weightloss, but really, you have to ask - do I strike you as Captain Sunshine?), I've been slightly over the 19 stone border, falling back under the border come the morning by more or less the simple process of evaporation it seems.
Last night though - after a fairly hefty meal including sausage (d's secret weapon against the joys of occasional constipation that come with Disappearing and not drinking enough water), and roast potato (Yes, I know - it's best not to ask - if the recent hot chocolate thing hasn't clued you in yet, my walls of division between what I allow myself and what I don't are serious, but frequently entirely illogical) - I weighed 18st 13.75 going to bed, and comforted myself that with the usual couple of pounds of overnight evaporation, plus the weight of the food I could expect to be gone from me before I weighed, I might confidently expect to be 'really' weighing 18st 10 this morning, my stated and intended goal.
Imagine my chagrin then, when morning came and in one of the first genuinely post-bathroom weigh-ins since we began again, I checked in at 18 st 13.
It feels neither right nor entirely fair, but let's not cry about it. Somehow, this week, I've not only not lost anything, I've regained an official pound. More than anything, that's tiresome because it means there's work to do again that was already done, albeit it's just the weight of a substantial pee.
So - on we go, with an occasional glare at the Nazi Scales in passing. A little bit longer, a little bit further to go.
Monday, 16 January 2017
The Lemming Temptation Principle - 13/1/17
OK, so this is pure stupidity.
Went to Cardiff for a day of full-on day-jobbery and editing.
People who find this through Facebook, which to be fair is most of you, will know that quite apart from my recent shenanigans with hot barely-scraping-the-calories-together-to-warrant-the-name chocolate, and flirtations with really dreadful chocolate in a gas station, I've been obsessing in a kind of intellectual way about Ritter Sport - a range of properly kickass chocolate that appeats unavailable in Merthyr.
There's a WH Smiths in the concourse at Cardiff Central train station.
And here's the perverse thing. The hot chocolate was brought to me, and I enjoyed it.
The crappy gas station chocolate was just there, talking to me.
I went into the WH Smith on the concourse, and I searched its aisles for some Ritter Sport.
Now, as it happened, there wasn't any there, but this is the weird thing - I wasn't searching for it because I intended to buy any. I was searching for it to not buy any.
I know, I know, twisted, but hear me out.
A pal of mine recently, in a pep talk, told me to avoid situations that were tempting. 'You're a foodaholic. Would you expect an alcoholic to run a bar, or a drug addict to run a pharmacy?'
Bless.
Well-meant advice of course, but my philosophy has always been exactly opposite to that. If I'm avoiding temptation, then technically, people with me can't do anything I'd find tempting - and that's no way to do this. So I have a weird tendency to embark on Lemming Temptation Outings, trying to put myself right there, one decision away from failure, on a regular basis.
I'm not really sure why - but it feels absurdly important to do this, as though I'm only partially Disappearing if I'm doing it in an echo chamber of my own brain, as though I have to invite my own failure in order to prove I'm succeeding.
OK, so mostly just just twisted. And it's not lost on me that actually, I embarked on a failed Lemming Temptation Outing, because the object on which I was fixated...wasn't there.
Faaaaairly sure I'd have succeeded if it had been. But..curses. Next time, Ritter Sport. Next time...
Went to Cardiff for a day of full-on day-jobbery and editing.
People who find this through Facebook, which to be fair is most of you, will know that quite apart from my recent shenanigans with hot barely-scraping-the-calories-together-to-warrant-the-name chocolate, and flirtations with really dreadful chocolate in a gas station, I've been obsessing in a kind of intellectual way about Ritter Sport - a range of properly kickass chocolate that appeats unavailable in Merthyr.
There's a WH Smiths in the concourse at Cardiff Central train station.
And here's the perverse thing. The hot chocolate was brought to me, and I enjoyed it.
The crappy gas station chocolate was just there, talking to me.
I went into the WH Smith on the concourse, and I searched its aisles for some Ritter Sport.
Now, as it happened, there wasn't any there, but this is the weird thing - I wasn't searching for it because I intended to buy any. I was searching for it to not buy any.
I know, I know, twisted, but hear me out.
A pal of mine recently, in a pep talk, told me to avoid situations that were tempting. 'You're a foodaholic. Would you expect an alcoholic to run a bar, or a drug addict to run a pharmacy?'
Bless.
Well-meant advice of course, but my philosophy has always been exactly opposite to that. If I'm avoiding temptation, then technically, people with me can't do anything I'd find tempting - and that's no way to do this. So I have a weird tendency to embark on Lemming Temptation Outings, trying to put myself right there, one decision away from failure, on a regular basis.
I'm not really sure why - but it feels absurdly important to do this, as though I'm only partially Disappearing if I'm doing it in an echo chamber of my own brain, as though I have to invite my own failure in order to prove I'm succeeding.
OK, so mostly just just twisted. And it's not lost on me that actually, I embarked on a failed Lemming Temptation Outing, because the object on which I was fixated...wasn't there.
Faaaaairly sure I'd have succeeded if it had been. But..curses. Next time, Ritter Sport. Next time...
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.
Wednesday, 11 January 2017
The Obsessive Compulsive Potential
I think - I could be wrong, but I think - it's pretty clear that Disappearing, the way I do it, has the potential to tip over into a fairly comprehensive personality disorder. The black-and-whiteness, the Perspex boxes, the compulsive unofficial weighing, the anxiety if I miss a day's exercise, the frantic rationalisations about what I've eaten, and whether figures are pre-or-post-'bathroom.' Clearly, it's effective, but as an actual mindset with which to go through life, it requires quite some pulling up later on in the process if one is not to crash and burn on the ground of one's life.
I mention this because at the moment I'm editing a novel, detailing the life, the rituals, the inner chiding voice of a man with some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder. It's a good book, but when, as happened twice last night, you read an action, and immediately understand in every disc of your spine what must follow it, it's a) a sign of good characterisation, and b) jusssst a little bit worrying.
Perversely, I just read a section of it about the man freaking right out when someone makes him tea in 'the wrong mug' - he has a mug that's his, a mug that's safe, and other mugs, should he drink out of them, will lead him to damnation, to unspecified evil consequences.
d popped her head around the office door as I was reading that, with a steaming mug.
Now - let's be clear. I don't have a special mug, and I don't believe in damnation. And, perhaps inspired by all the talk of mugs of tea, I'd just been about to get off my ass and go and make one when she came in, bearing the steaming mug.
In the book, our protagonist, unable to drink from another mug for fear of damnation, unable NOT to drink from it for fear of embarrassment and discovery of his condition, goes the classic 'Oh, look at that!' route, then 'accidentally' spills the contents from the wrong mug and goes to make himself a refill in the right mug.
I knew what was in my mug before I even looked. It was - (cue dramatic music) - hot chocolate!
Now, let's be real here. We're not talking Belgian, cocoa-rich goodness, we're talking powdery, sugar-lite, 40-calories-per-sachet malarkey, though made with d's trademark care.
But in my brain, the battle began.
'That's chocolate. You're not allowed chocolate.'
'Do me a frigging favour. That's never seen a cocoa nib in its life.'
'It's still chocolate.'
'In what possible way is it chocolate? I'm not BEING this person.'
'You ARE this person. And it's Gateway Chococate.'
'It bloody isn't.'
'Bloody is. You can't drink it. Bad things will happen. Weight gain will happen. You'll have broken your Perspex boxes. Next thing you know, you'll be face down in the muffins at the gas station, weighing 23 stone.'
'Fuck. Right. Off. I'm drinking it.'
'Allllright, but on your own waistline be it.'
'It's forty calories per cup, for fuck's sake. my usual Starbucks drink has sugar-free caramel in it that costs more than that, and I haven't gone on a caramel binge yet.'
'But this is choooooocolate.'
'Oh, seriously, shut up.' And with that, I took a sip, and another, sadly not for the sake of the pleasure of it, but to put the question beyond doubt. I'm not about to turn a loving, caring, perfectly beautiful gesture into the beginning of some unravelling downward spiral.
Of course, technically, come five o'clock, I AM about to go and walk 12,000 steps. But...y'know...I would have been doing that anyway.
Yes, I would. Oh you can shurrup too...
I mention this because at the moment I'm editing a novel, detailing the life, the rituals, the inner chiding voice of a man with some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder. It's a good book, but when, as happened twice last night, you read an action, and immediately understand in every disc of your spine what must follow it, it's a) a sign of good characterisation, and b) jusssst a little bit worrying.
Perversely, I just read a section of it about the man freaking right out when someone makes him tea in 'the wrong mug' - he has a mug that's his, a mug that's safe, and other mugs, should he drink out of them, will lead him to damnation, to unspecified evil consequences.
d popped her head around the office door as I was reading that, with a steaming mug.
Now - let's be clear. I don't have a special mug, and I don't believe in damnation. And, perhaps inspired by all the talk of mugs of tea, I'd just been about to get off my ass and go and make one when she came in, bearing the steaming mug.
In the book, our protagonist, unable to drink from another mug for fear of damnation, unable NOT to drink from it for fear of embarrassment and discovery of his condition, goes the classic 'Oh, look at that!' route, then 'accidentally' spills the contents from the wrong mug and goes to make himself a refill in the right mug.
I knew what was in my mug before I even looked. It was - (cue dramatic music) - hot chocolate!
Now, let's be real here. We're not talking Belgian, cocoa-rich goodness, we're talking powdery, sugar-lite, 40-calories-per-sachet malarkey, though made with d's trademark care.
But in my brain, the battle began.
'That's chocolate. You're not allowed chocolate.'
'Do me a frigging favour. That's never seen a cocoa nib in its life.'
'It's still chocolate.'
'In what possible way is it chocolate? I'm not BEING this person.'
'You ARE this person. And it's Gateway Chococate.'
'It bloody isn't.'
'Bloody is. You can't drink it. Bad things will happen. Weight gain will happen. You'll have broken your Perspex boxes. Next thing you know, you'll be face down in the muffins at the gas station, weighing 23 stone.'
'Fuck. Right. Off. I'm drinking it.'
'Allllright, but on your own waistline be it.'
'It's forty calories per cup, for fuck's sake. my usual Starbucks drink has sugar-free caramel in it that costs more than that, and I haven't gone on a caramel binge yet.'
'But this is choooooocolate.'
'Oh, seriously, shut up.' And with that, I took a sip, and another, sadly not for the sake of the pleasure of it, but to put the question beyond doubt. I'm not about to turn a loving, caring, perfectly beautiful gesture into the beginning of some unravelling downward spiral.
Of course, technically, come five o'clock, I AM about to go and walk 12,000 steps. But...y'know...I would have been doing that anyway.
Yes, I would. Oh you can shurrup too...
Tuesday, 10 January 2017
No More Walks In The Water Park
Weigh-in day today.
Weigh-in days evolved to be Tuesdays because way back in the
dim and distant past, when we moved from London to Merthyr, I often had to go
back to the city for the day on a Monday, so Monday weigh-ins would inevitably
be ‘pre-bathroom’ affairs, because with a sluggish metabolism, if I waited to
get a ‘post-bathroom’ number, I’d have missed more than one train, and would
have had several hard stares from my boss.
I wouldn’t have been able to see them of course, I’d have
missed the train, but still – that’s why we shifted to Tuesday weigh-ins.
This morning, I had plans to de-camp to Cardiff, to my
Starbucks, for a day of intense day-jobbery and an evening’s editing. So
today’s weigh-in is also ‘pre-bathroom’ – and as such encourages me to do the
mathematics of self-delusion, trying to estimate how much weight I eventually
got rid of which isn’t included in the official figures. Yes, seriously, I give
actual brain-space to such equations these days. Sad, sad, sad man.
But this morning’s weigh-in figure actually marks the
dividing line between phases of Disappearing.
The figure is 18 stone, 12.75.
So on the one hand, yay and all that – more than a stone (14
pounds) lost since we started again, and it was gratifying to see the 18. As
I’ve mentioned before though, I tend not to feel like I’m really Disappearing till
I’m under 18 stone and we’re pushing down through the 17s.
But in particular, what this means Is that I lost exactly 2
pounds this week. I’m not gonna lie - with the digestive irregularity and the
breaking out of the longer walks, there’s a part of me that feels cheated by
that. But here’s the dividing line I mentioned. The first two weeks of any
weightloss regime are apparently when you lose all your stored water (as I
mentioned last week, who knew I was so subcutaneously soggy?). That’s why you
get such sudden, dramatic figures showing – six pounds per week and so on. Water’s
eeeeasy once you start.
After which, by and large, the real bastardy begins, and
your body fat folds its theoretical arms and mutters ‘Ohhh you think you’re a
big shot now, do ya? Well we’re not fuckin’ movin’ pal, alright?’
This is when the real games begin. This is when it turns
into High Noon between you and your body fat, the whistling tune playing across
the dusty street of your bloody-minded stubborn bastardy. It’s you versus you.
The future versus the past, and you’re the only one that gets to decide which
version of you wins.
The thing is, Fat-You is, by nature of having had to be, to
get you looking this way, a cunning, cunning bastard. It will try to trick you
into celebration - ‘Wow, you lost a stone, how cool are you? Maybe just a
little treat wouldn’t hurt, eh? Just to celebrate, then you can get back on
with it…’ It will try to trick you into vanity – ‘Wow, you look so much better
already. Maybe you’ve done enough for now, eh?’ And it will try to trick you
with tantrum-cravings, which may or may not have been a big factor in your
journey so far – ‘God, how much lonnnnnnger
till we can have a chocolate bar? We’ve been soooooo good. Just a little one?
Just something, cos we reeeeeeeallly need it…’
At which point, you pretty much have to have no mercy and
punch it relentlessly in the face until it shuts the hell up. Do something. Do anything. Have water. Have coffee, with
as little milk as possible. Have, gods help your desperate brain, salad. Have
anything that won’t smash the Perspex boxes between you and your Danger-Foods,
but will make you feel like you’ve had something, like you’re full. If you find
your brain trying to convince you of any of this stuff, remember you’re a
Womble. No, wait, got carried away there. Remember you’re a stubborn
bastard, that’s what I meant. If you hear yourself thinking any of this
stuff, use it as an alarm, a klaxon. It’s your Fat-Self trying to protect
itself, trying to maintain its existence in the face of what it’s just begun to
realise after two weeks is your serious intent to do this, and to replace your
Fat-Self with your Disappeared-Self.
Remember this – your body doesn’t know it’s Christmas. It
doesn’t know it’s your birthday. It doesn’t precisely know you’ve lost x-amount
of weight. There are, in actual fact, no celebrations in Disappearing, beyond a
bit of a wave and a cheer and a Happy Dance. You can’t really step off, go wild
and crazy for the night, and get back on. I know some of you actually can,
absolutely, do this, and more power to you. I can’t do it. For me, Disappearing
is like marriage or pregnancy – you don’t get a night off from it. You can’t
fool around with a fondant and then expect your Disappearing-Self to take you
back in the morning because it ‘meant nothing to me, honestly, less than
nothing.’ I’m in this thing for the long haul. And really speaking, the long
haul begins here.
So – two pounds this week. The medically advisable amount,
and what we’re actually aiming to lose each week. Long haul
week one – goal achieved. Next!
This rate means three weeks from now we do a mini-wave of
celebration at having crossed the next border – at least in UK terms – as we go
under 18st 7. One month after that, at this rate, we his the 17s. So – seven
weeks of hard slog to lose the same amount as we’ve lost in the first two
weeks? Man, that sounds no fun!
No. No it doesn’t, does it? But this is not actually fun in
any way – it’s a programme for losing medically dangerous weight and turning my
life around. Seven weeks? Seven weeks is nothing, if it’s just seven weeks of
doing what I’ve been doing so far. The cunning bit is that it won’t be. Long
before that, we’re likely to hit the first plateau – probably three weeks from
now, if I’m any judge, as the body settles into Disappearing as ‘the new
normal’ and stops burning fat to cope with the system shock. Still – that’s a
gunfight to have when we get there. For now, yay, under the 19 stone marker,
and losing the right amount of non-water weight in the first week of slogging.
Onwards and downwards!
Monday, 9 January 2017
The Cramps Of Doom
Can you think of anything worse than sudden and unpredictable stomach cramps?
I can.
Sudden and unpredictable stomach-cramps, five thousand steps into a 12,000-step walk, when you're in the middle of Bumblefuck, Nowheresville.
Yep, on balance, I'd have to say that's worse.
I'd have to say that after tonight's experience. Having been rather pleased with yesterday's Numb Zone walk, I set out to do it again, and it was going just swimmingly, until, almost exactly 5000 steps in - wallop! Waves of nausea that ran up my spine, hit my throat, slipped down to my stomach and set my whole digestive tract doing La Cucaracha, with what we'll euphemistically call 'the business end' whiplashing like a speared snake.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Disappearing World, I'd like to sing a song of praise, if you don't mind.
A song of praise to the humble sphincter - of which of course we have far more than we imagine.
Much clenching was done. Much eye-shutting mental screaming of the words 'No no no no no!'
Much sweating too, as I walked possibly the fastest 6000 steps of my life - it is perhaps indicative of my particular perversity that rather than, for instance, pulling my phone and calling a friend or a taxi, even in such sudden distress, I thought 'Fuck that, I want the steps!' and simply turned around to complete the walk.
Then, ossly, suddenly, there was a plateau, and I was able to walk without fear for some time.
Then wallop! La cucaracha! Clench, clench, clench, No, no, no, no, no!
Annnd relax. Walk, walk, walk!
Wallop! La cucaracha!...
And so on. For 6000 steps (sue me, I took a short cut over yesterday's 12,000-step version!).
A word to the wise - when you're having one of these battles...don't cough. Just...just really, don't.
Having deployed the likes of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song to power me in very many very short strides down a long stretch just before the final run, I thought I was safe. I made it to within 500 yards of home.
WALL-the fuck!-OP! IN CASE YOU'RE REALLY NOT GETTING THIS, LA PISSING CUCA-BLEEDIN'-RACHA, PILGRIM!
Clench, clench, clench...Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. Clench, you mother puss-bucket! CLEEEEEENCH!
There was a moment when I simply knew that I was out of the driving seat. Either this final intense bout of clenching would be enough, and I'd get home safely, or La Cucaracha would keep building and building and building and finally overpower my capacity to clench, and 500 yards from home, I would end up a hideous mess.
CLENCH, CLENCH, CLEEEEEEEENCH!!!
Ahhh....
The clenching won. This time.
I got home with barely seconds of clenching and resolve left in me.
And as my will to walk and, frankly, lunch, poured out of me, as that turning of my insides to horrifying smoothie took control, I knew I was on a Disappearing journey. Because the only thought that swam clear to the surface of my brain was 'Fantastic! Monday night! This can't be bad, the night before a weigh-in!'
Sigh. That's the Disappearing Mindset for you right there, folks.
I can.
Sudden and unpredictable stomach-cramps, five thousand steps into a 12,000-step walk, when you're in the middle of Bumblefuck, Nowheresville.
Yep, on balance, I'd have to say that's worse.
I'd have to say that after tonight's experience. Having been rather pleased with yesterday's Numb Zone walk, I set out to do it again, and it was going just swimmingly, until, almost exactly 5000 steps in - wallop! Waves of nausea that ran up my spine, hit my throat, slipped down to my stomach and set my whole digestive tract doing La Cucaracha, with what we'll euphemistically call 'the business end' whiplashing like a speared snake.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Disappearing World, I'd like to sing a song of praise, if you don't mind.
A song of praise to the humble sphincter - of which of course we have far more than we imagine.
Much clenching was done. Much eye-shutting mental screaming of the words 'No no no no no!'
Much sweating too, as I walked possibly the fastest 6000 steps of my life - it is perhaps indicative of my particular perversity that rather than, for instance, pulling my phone and calling a friend or a taxi, even in such sudden distress, I thought 'Fuck that, I want the steps!' and simply turned around to complete the walk.
Then, ossly, suddenly, there was a plateau, and I was able to walk without fear for some time.
Then wallop! La cucaracha! Clench, clench, clench, No, no, no, no, no!
Annnd relax. Walk, walk, walk!
Wallop! La cucaracha!...
And so on. For 6000 steps (sue me, I took a short cut over yesterday's 12,000-step version!).
A word to the wise - when you're having one of these battles...don't cough. Just...just really, don't.
Having deployed the likes of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song to power me in very many very short strides down a long stretch just before the final run, I thought I was safe. I made it to within 500 yards of home.
WALL-the fuck!-OP! IN CASE YOU'RE REALLY NOT GETTING THIS, LA PISSING CUCA-BLEEDIN'-RACHA, PILGRIM!
Clench, clench, clench...Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. Clench, you mother puss-bucket! CLEEEEEENCH!
There was a moment when I simply knew that I was out of the driving seat. Either this final intense bout of clenching would be enough, and I'd get home safely, or La Cucaracha would keep building and building and building and finally overpower my capacity to clench, and 500 yards from home, I would end up a hideous mess.
CLENCH, CLENCH, CLEEEEEEEENCH!!!
Ahhh....
The clenching won. This time.
I got home with barely seconds of clenching and resolve left in me.
And as my will to walk and, frankly, lunch, poured out of me, as that turning of my insides to horrifying smoothie took control, I knew I was on a Disappearing journey. Because the only thought that swam clear to the surface of my brain was 'Fantastic! Monday night! This can't be bad, the night before a weigh-in!'
Sigh. That's the Disappearing Mindset for you right there, folks.
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