Divorce, Sobriety, and New Beginnings

One year has passed since Mrs. Rodius told me she wanted a divorce. About 2 1/2 weeks have passed since we signed and filed the Final Decree of Divorce. In about a week, it will have been a year since I had my last drink. 2015 was a helluva year.

In that year, I lost a wife. I lost about half of my time with my son. I lost my financial security. I lost my identity as a full-time stay-at-home dad. I lost my home, and my neighborhood. The best of my losses was the 50 pounds or so I shed, mostly because I quit drinking and spent a lot of time in the first half of the year angry walking, roaming for miles and hours every night after Thumper went to bed, stewing and avoiding fights with my future ex-wife. I put a lot of miles on my shoes in the spring of '15.

At the same time as all those losses, I had many gains, too. I gained a new relationship with my son as we navigate all these changes together. I gained independence and responsibility. I gained a new identity, returning to full-time employment after an 8-year hiatus. I gained a new home, a space of my own, something that I've never had. And most surprising, because I was certain that I wanted nothing to do with long-term romantic relationships for at least a couple of years, I gained a girlfriend.

I don't think I'll blog much about her. I'll tell you now that she lifts me up in ways that I didn't know I needed. She was a dear friend who mentored me through the early days of the implosion of my marriage, who told me often, though I didn't believe her, that I would be happy again. She is an amazingly down-to-earth mother who regularly talks me down from all of my intellectual flights of fancy and over-analysis of everything I do and think when it comes to Thumper and to myself. It was a surprise when that treasured friendship evolved into something more. She likes to give what I like to receive, and she likes to receive what I like to give. She is a gift. She is a gift that I don't want to share with you. So you may never hear another word about her. Though who am I kidding? I talk a lot. She'll probably come up again.

Something else I gained that I didn't think I would, though I wanted it very much for a very long time, is my sobriety. I drank. Too much. Through most of my adolescence and all of my adulthood. Most people who know me, or knew me, would be surprised, I think, to know how much I drank. I was good at hiding it and at functioning well enough. But it was a lot, and it would have killed me eventually, I have no doubt. Now I'm sober, and I don't even miss it. Sobriety is yet another thing that 2015 brought me, including divorce, and happiness, and a new and very different romance. If someone had told me a year ago that these things were coming, I wouldn't have believed any of it.

If you are here looking for advice on how to quit drinking, I don't really have any. I went to one AA meeting. The people there were kind and welcoming. I participated. I stood up and called myself an alcoholic. I cried. I got a hug, and a desire chip, and someone bought me a copy of The Big Book, though I don't know why they call it that. It's really not that big. I read every word, and some of it twice. I never called the number that the person who bought it for me wrote on the inside cover, and I never went back to another meeting. AA just didn't speak to me. I wanted to be done with alcohol, not spend much of my life talking about it. I had no stories to share of waking up in jail after a three-day blackout bender. I hadn't lost everything to alcohol. I don't even believe that alcohol killed my marriage. If anything, alcohol kept my marriage stumbling along long after it should have lain down and died. Most of all, though, I couldn't see myself ever getting past steps 2 and 3. For many non-religious people, the phrases "a power greater than ourselves" and "God as we understand Him" make it possible to reconcile a lack of faith in God with the faith necessary to work the steps. One person even told me that I could make that power and that God entirely symbolic, substituting something as mundane as a doorknob if I chose. But I still couldn't do it. I couldn't conceive of the power and I couldn't admit powerlessness. But reading the book helped, and knowing that I really never wanted to go back helped, too. I'm not denigrating it. It's a stunningly powerful and effective program, and its grassroots development from a handful of people to a worldwide movement is virtually unprecedented. It's famous because it works. It will work for you if you work it, as they say. I just didn't work it.

But I haven't had a drink in a year, and it hasn't been that hard. Outside of the first couple of weeks, especially the sleeplessness, it's even been easy. I don't want to drink any more. I don't know why I don't, but it's a huge relief. Some people I drank with seem puzzled, maybe even baffled that I would never drink again. Like Andre 3000 in Outkast's "Ms. Jackson," they wonder, "Forever? Forever ever? Forever ever?"



Yes. Forever ever. That idea was scary to me before I quit. To never drink again? Unthinkable. But now, it's more than fine with me. It took from me, but it didn't give anything back. What I thought it gave me was truthfully just another way it took from me. I don't want it back. I'm free. You can drink. You can drink when I'm around. It doesn't bother me to be near it. I'm just done. Don't know why. Just am.

And yes, I know the Big Book is full of stories of people who quit, and were sure, and started again, and never truly made it until they did steps 2 and 3 and the rest. And I haven't. And maybe that puts me in jeopardy. We'll see. Right now, I'm fine. I'm better than fine.

 And that's pretty much the sum total of my life philosophy as I move from 2015 to 2016. I don't know about next week. I don't know about next month. I don't know about next year. But right now? Right now is good. And that's more than enough. I don't really have any resolutions for the new year. I don't know that I need any. I do have a goal: run the Cap10K in under an hour. That's a pretty big one. I'd have to check the race bibs on my wall to see if I've ever done it before. I've done 10Ks in under an hour, but maybe not that one. It's all uphill for the first half. But I want to keep my weight loss going, and I want to get back the sense of accomplishment that running gave me in 2010, 2011, 2012. I don't know if running will ever again be for me what it was. I don't know anything, really. And I'm keeping my focus right in front of my feet for now. But if 2015, the worst year of my life, brought me so many unexpected and truly priceless gifts, who knows what 2016 will bring?

Start Again

Two years later and I'm back where I started. My weight is back up, and I don't think I could finish a 5K without walking now. My breathing problems worsened, and I couldn't and still can't find a solution. The working theory now is allergies, but a year of allergy shots did nothing for me, and none of the over-the-counter allergy medications does me any good, so I've been coasting along, hoping it will get better on its own. But it hasn't. Also, I fell trying to jump over a barricade to get to the port-o-potties before the start of the Turkey Trot 5-Miler and bashed my knee. I still ran it, but I had about a month of knee pain that helped me rationalize a long stretch of eating, drinking, and being merry while not exercising at all.

So, yeah, I'm fat and out of shape again. Time to start over. Again. I'm not going to count calories, though. I refuse. I hate it, and I never maintain it. I'm going to focus on eliminating alcohol (again) and exercising. I plan on mixing the running with other activities to keep me from getting burned out on it, which was also a problem over the last year. Now that I have a smartphone, I'm going to try RunKeeper to track my runs and I've linked it to Fitocracy which lets me track other exercises and earn points. I don't think the points get me anything except the satisfaction of rising through levels, Dungeons & Dragons style. Maybe I can be a level 13 Neutral Evil Human Ranger by the end of the year.

I think I'll remove all of the runs and weight info on the right side panel. It's getting cluttered, and clearly I haven't been updating it anyway.

Here's to a new year.

I Tried a Tri!

As I've mentioned, I've been in a diet and exercise slump. In the 6 weeks since that post, I've gained even more, so that today I weighed in at 17 pounds heavier than my lowest around Halloween. I trained pretty hard for the 3M Half Marathon in January because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to finish if I didn't, but once I finished the half (as we runners like to say), I started having a really hard time getting myself to run or to keep running. It was too easy to quit in the middle of a workout, telling myself I'd do a longer workout tomorrow, and even easier to skip it altogether, also in favor of that good workout tomorrow. But of course, tomorrow never comes.

Along with low workout motivation comes low diet motivation, eating more and worse foods and drinking more, and more often. And low diet motivation makes it harder to get up and run in the morning because I'm poorly nourished and under hydrated.

So it went, and I couldn't seem to break out of it.

Then I saw a cheap, small, local triathlon advertised. I'd said to some of my running friends when we were standing around chatting before or after the various 5Ks and 10Ks that I wanted to try a triathlon some time, but they were all so expensive. This one was anything but expensive, so it seemed to me that I all but had to sign up. So I did, with about 3 weeks to train for it.

But I didn't. My malaise lingered on, and I ran only once a week for those 3 weeks. Finally, 3 days before the event, I decided I really ought to test my assumption that swimming 17 laps in the pool for the first leg of the event wouldn't be so tough, and I gave it a try. I made it 10 laps before laboriously hauling myself out of the pool and sitting and shaking for about half an hour. It struck me hard that this "sprint triathlon" was going to be considerably tougher than I had anticipated.

The next day, I returned to the pool, adjusted my pace and stuck to breast stroke instead of crawl. I made it 18 laps that time, and shook less when I got out. I thought, "OK, maybe I'm not going to drown after all."

The race was fun. It was small, with about 30 participants, many of whom looked like they were in worse physical condition than I. The swimming (425 meters) was fine, and the biking (12 miles) was fine, but the part that I thought would be a piece of cake (a 3-mile run) was the hardest of all. When I got off the bike and tried to run, my legs nearly gave out beneath me. I had to walk for a minute or so until I could start to jog again. My left calf cramped up. So did my right thigh and my right side, and I've never had cramping problems when I run. That three miles stretched on forever, and I had to stop and walk several times.

Finally, the finish line loomed ahead. I heard footsteps coming up behind me, and the race staff at the finish line started yelling, "Come on, she's going to pass you! Strong finish!" So I poured on the gas for a neck-and-neck photo finish with the runner coming up behind me. As soon as I started to sprint, I heard her chuckle. She had every reason to. The women had started 20 minutes after the men, so she still had a time 20 minutes faster than mine, but it felt great to "win by a nose!"

It was fun. I beat my time goal by several minutes, and I had that same wonderful "I can't believe I actually finished!" feeling that I had after the half. A friend who also ran the triathlon with me (she's run several before) said that she was going to run the TriRock in September. She's running the "Olympic distance" for the first time. She encouraged me to sign up. I'm going to do the sprint triathlon, which is still longer than the one I did this weekend. It's 700 m/16.7 mi/3.1 mi (compared to the 425 m/12 mi/3 mi I just did and compared to the 1500 m/24.8 mi/6.2 mi on her "Olympic distance.").

I hope that step up in distance over what I've already done will give me the same motivation that I got from the half, the fear that if I don't train hard enough, I won't be able to finish. And having swimming and biking to rotate with my running workouts will help alleviate the burnout I've been feeling from running in place or running in circles. It's only been one day, but so far, I've met all of my diet and exercise goals that I've set for myself this week. We'll see if it lasts, but I'm feeling more excited about losing that 17 pounds and getting back to progressing instead of regressing.

Anyway. Sorry that was a long post, and it didn't include even one cute story about a preschooler, but hopefully moving on from this malaise of mine will see me back here more often, writing more words.

Goals Met and Unmet

So I'm 40 now. Last year, I set some goals for myself. Some of them I met; one of them I didn't. I'm only halfway to my weight loss goal, mostly because I did not stick to the calorie-counting and limited alcohol consumption. I'm not sure why this is so hard for me, but it's a lifelong struggle. I'll keep struggling.

I'm not going to beat myself up too badly for it, though, because I have succeeded in some ways that I never have before. While I didn't lose as much weight as I wanted, when I stopped losing, I maintained instead of gaining. I ran my first 10K nearly 2 years ago, and I've continued to run, to improve, to decrease times and increase distances, and it's that long-term commitment to running that's new to me. I have, all my life, lost weight, stopped exercising, then gained weight back again. This time I'm keeping regular exercise as part of my lifestyle, mostly by continuing to add running events, 5Ks, 10Ks, and even a half marathon, to my calendar.

Oh yeah, did I mention I ran the 3M Half Marathon? I registered to give myself a new challenge, but at the time, and right through to the time that I crossed the finish line, I didn't really believe that I could do it. I set a time goal for myself that was only a little bit slower of a per-mile pace than my 10K pace at the time, and I thought I couldn't possibly reach that goal, either.

But I did. I ran the whole way, never stopping to walk, and I beat my time goal by 30 seconds.

So looking to the future, I guess it's time to remind myself of old goals, like controlling my calorie intake and especially my alcohol consumption. But it's also time for new goals. I would like to reach my 200 lb. goal by the time the local pool opens for the summer, which is around May 1. I'd also like to be a better father to Thumper. I'm terrible at controlling my annoyance and exasperation. I can see clearly how I'm teaching him to react the same way as every day I see my irritation reflected right back at me. One of the members of the Stay-at-Home Dads group was talking about a class he's taking, called Logic and Love, and it may be that Thumper and I would benefit from something like that. At any rate, I'm tired of being bitchy so much of the time.

This is the year that Thumper will enter kindergarten, and I also plan to start writing now. I'll be staying home full-time for a while even after he enters school, and I'll need to find ways to do that and still earn more money. I've always wanted to be a writer, but I've never actually written very much, so now is the time to establish a more regular writing routine by blogging more often and participating in writing challenges like Trifecta and Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge. To write, and to sell, short stories, articles, and eventually a novel, I have to actually write short stories, articles, and a novel.

So continue to work on my health and fitness, read and write more and watch fewer movies and TV shows on the internet, and try to be nicer to my son. That's where I am right now. Happy 2012!

Abstinence Makes the Calorie Count Grow Smaller

I tried the Paleo Diet awhile back, hoping it would reveal that my respiratory difficulties are the result of a wheat or dairy allergy. After a couple of months of strict adherence (except for the alcohol and caffeine) it hadn't helped my breathing, so I let it go. I moved on to various asthma medications, a systematic trial of every allergy medication available over-the-counter, and a couple of months of daily neti pot use, all with no effect on my breathing problems.

I went to an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist, who upon hearing my tale of woe, immediately zeroed in on Laryngopharyngeal Reflux (LPR), declaring it the most common of all digestive disorders, and put me on a regimen of 2 acid blockers. He also told me to elevate the head of my bed, which didn't make Aerie happy since she keeps bashing her toes on the cinder blocks I used to achieve that effect.

I go back to see the ENT guy next week, and I want to be able to tell him that I actually did what every doctor says first for every ailment: cut out the alcohol and caffeine. I will also be telling him that the acid blockers did exactly what every other remedy I've tried so far has done: absolutely nothing.

So I suspect I'll be back where I was with my personal care physician many months ago: allergies, despite the fact that no allergy medication helps. When I go back to the ENT guy, I'll also be getting those allergy tests where they scratch your skin with a jillion different allergens to see what causes you to swell up. Hopefully a solution will present itself.

But all of that was to tell you that I'm not drinking alcohol or caffeine, and I'm back on the Paleo Diet. Paleo may not have cured my lungs, but since it eliminates grains and dairy, it's an easy way to remember to skip empty calories, like crackers, pretzels, cheese, ice cream, etc. I've thought of food before as taste and belly filler, figuring nutrition would take care of itself, but now I'm trying to remember to make every calorie worth something, with a high nutrition-per-calorie ratio, with lean protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, etc. and not just empty calories that do nothing for me beyond the few minutes it takes me to consume them. Also, the ENT guy said that alcohol and caffeine can both exacerbate the LPR, so I'm trying to make sure the booze and cola and coffee and Rockstars aren't cancelling out the acid blockers.

The added bonus is, of course, that I'm consuming far fewer calories. Last time I was on Paleo, I wasn't counting calories, so I hadn't realized what I realize now that I'm tracking my meals on myfitnesspal.com: without the booze, I'm struggling to meet my daily recommended allowance of calories. Three meals a day, I eat giant plates of food, with spinach and peppers and cucumbers and strawberries and peaches and broccoli and cauliflower and mushrooms and chicken breast and fish fillets and turkey breast, etc., plus a couple of snacks each day, and I can't come close to the 2300 calories myfitnesspal wants me to eat. On the weight loss front, this is a good thing, as I've dropped 2 pounds in 2 days, but long-term, I don't want my body to go into starvation mode. Though there is a school of thought that a reduced calorie diet is the surest path to longevity.

When I was on a Weight Watchers plan, I loved that it was so easy to stay under my points goal for the day, because it left me plenty of drankin' calories left over, but now that I'm not drinking them up, I feel like I should be using them in a healthy manner. But I'm not hungry, and I don't think I could possibly pack in another giant plateful, and to hit my 2300, I'd have to jam in two more giant platefuls anyway.

So I guess I'll keep on for awhile, see how I feel, see if the elimination of two of my few remaining vices helps my breathing, and see if 1200 or 1400 calories per day drives me into an early grave or helps me live forever.

Predictably

1) My motivation for counting Weight Watchers points faltered pretty quickly. I'm still making good mealtime choices, but when I'm not counting, it's easy to throw in an extra snack here and there and think of it as unimportant or incidental, or to eat in their entirety the staff meals that were provided at work this weekend, including dessert, because it's really not that bad, and it's only occasional. But repeated and untracked "occasional" or "special" meals or snacks add up quickly. I'm going to keep trying to make good choices, but clearly counting is not for me.

I just ordered The Paleo Diet from Amazon (along with new ear-clip headphones and lubricant to prevent nipple chafe), so hopefully that will help me keep my calories under control and improve my lung function. I'm running and running and pushing myself to ever greater respiratory achievements, but somehow I'm still constantly wheezing and clearing my throat. My lungs suck. And blow. Ha! See what I did there? Respiratory humor! Anyway, maybe the Paleo Diet will help me discover that some portion of my lung dysfunction comes from a food allergy, like wheat or dairy, and suddenly I'll be able to breathe effectively again. Or something.

And yes, I did parenthetically mention that I purchased a special salve to put on my nipples to keep my shirt from sanding them off entirely as I run. And no, I couldn't let it pass as just a parenthetical comment. Nipple chafe for runners is a fascinating topic to me. Never would I have imagined such a thing. Never would I have imagined so many people pursuing a hobby with nipple chafe as a side-effect. Never would I have thought of Googling images of runners' bloody nipples. And yet, here we are.

2) Old stressors temporarily muted are starting to rise in volume again, pushing my wife to make tough choices and to anguish over them. There are, still and again, no good solutions, and every option has unpleasant consequences. Which is partly why:

3) I'm also struggling on the elimination of alcohol from my weekly routine.

So there you go. I'm working hard, running and lifting weights and doing push ups and losing weight, but every weekend is one step back on my week's two steps forward. I'm succeeding and I'm failing, and I'm happy, and I'm sad, and I'm mad, and I'm guilty, and I'm proud, and that's pretty much how life goes.

He Already Knows That Forever Young Would Just Suck

For Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa gave Thumper Modern Publishing's Treasury of Illustrated Classics, a box set of 16 children's versions of classic novels. His set has some different titles than this one on Amazon, including Black Beauty, Moby Dick, The Secret Garden, and Oliver Twist but you get the idea. He has been very interested in looking through the books one by one and asking us questions about the illustrations, but he has resisted actually reading them at bedtime. Last night, though, he decided he was ready.

I have to admit, I'm curious what a children's version of Moby Dick might be like. If they removed all of the bits about whale biology and the history of whaling through the mid 19th-century, it might be just the right length. But instead, what we started with was Peter Pan. I was excited to start his very first chapter book.

We read the first chapter, about the mother's perplexity over the presumably imaginary Peter Pan who manages to leave dried leaves and muddy footprints in the nursery while the Darling children are sleeping, even though the nursery is three stories up and he never uses the door. When we finished the first chapter, I told Thumper we could read more the next night, and he thought that was a good idea. We talked about the characters on the cover and in the couple of illustrations in the first chapter. When I told him that Peter Pan is always a little boy and never grows up into an adult, he furrowed his brow. I asked him if he'd like to be a little boy forever, and he said, "No!" in a tone of voice that clearly communicated that he thought that was the dumbest question I could ever have come up with. Why would anyone want to stay a kid?

I can understand why he feels that way. Being a kid has been tough lately. We're in a near-constant battle of wills these days, and most of the time he winds up on the losing end, though he puts up quite a fight. It's been a struggle for me, too, and I feel like most of my time is spent feeling either angry or guilty. I tell him to do something, and he ignores me. I tell him again and he ignores me. I say it louder, and he growls at me, hits me, throws something at me, or yells, "You keep saying it over and over!" And the next thing I know, we're both yelling at each other until finally he's wailing through a timeout in his room.

Today, though, when he refused to eat his lunch and then threw his spoon at me when I said he couldn't have dessert, I skipped all the yelling and carried him calmly to his room. He wailed, "Daddy! Daddy!" through a 3-minute timeout, and then I sat with him in his rocking chair and quietly explained that all of the yelling makes me feel bad, and I don't want to do it anymore. I'm the Daddy, and it's my job to keep him healthy and safe and teach him how to be polite. He's the kid, and it's his job to listen to me. From now on, he can choose to listen to me and we can keep playing and having fun and getting nice treats sometimes, like dessert, or he can choose not to listen to me and go straight to timeout, but we're not going to do the part where I tell him something, he ignores me, and we yell at each other anymore.

"But I don't like timeouts," he said.

"Then you should think about doing what I ask you to do. Does that sound like a good plan?"

"Yeah."

"I love you."

"Now can I have some dessert?"

I've heard that 4 is sweet. But it's only Tuesday, and 3 is already making me question my resolve not to drink.

Start Again

I recall from my adolescence when my father and I watched British comedies on PBS each Sunday night that there was an episode of Monty Python in which the voice over would periodically throughout the episode say, "Start again..." and the title sequence would run again and the show would start afresh.

Yeah, my weight loss saga is kind of like that.

Tomorrow I will be returning to the gym after a 6 1/2-week absence. I've eaten whatever I wanted during that time and have no doubt I've gained 10 or more pounds in the interim. I ultimately want to take a look into the Paleo Diet and see if it's right for me. I heard about this diet from Le Trevolution! whose transformation since I first met him has been inspiring. I suspect some of my respiratory troubles may come from my diet, and I want to see if eliminating dairy and grains helps. I haven't done the work to become informed and plan ahead for that yet, though, so this week my goals are: exercise 3 or 4 days, count Weight Watchers points (on the old Flex plan, because who has the time or money to keep up with Weight Watchers constantly changing plans?), and not to drink on weekdays.

So I've put some numbers on the sidebar that I hope will help keep me motivated. Here's to 200 in 2012!

Happy Birthday to Me

I am soon to be 39, and naturally that makes me think of 40. If it's to be ready in time, I should get started on the birthday present that I want to give myself for my 40th birthday: a me that's not overweight for the first time in about 20 years.

I've done this so many times in my life that I'm going to try not to set my goals too high. Mostly I want to return to some idea of reasonable in portion control, alcohol consumption, and exercise. The portion control part will be in the vein of Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers has been the most effective weight loss program I've ever tried, but it's tedious and joyless and I've never been able to keep up with it for very long. I'm going to try again, though, and if I can stick with it long enough, maybe I can establish a new pattern for myself.

I'm also going to try to eliminate alcohol, not from my life but just from my routine. It's a part of my routine, which doesn't make me proud, but it does make me fat and sometimes surly.

And exercise. I was doing well on the exercise portion of the program for quite awhile, losing weight when I ate right and maintaining weight when I didn't. Then I broke my finger, and got pneumonia, and Thumper got sick, and Thumper got sick again, and now I've been over a month out of the gym and have put on 10 pounds or so.

When I think about maybe finally being healthy when I turn 40, it's great to have the inspiration of Greg Moyle, who's following a Couch to 5K program, and Captain Carl, who's posting weigh-in pics and talking openly about his struggles. There's also Le Trevolution, the father of a smart, funny, and pretty darn cute little girl just a little older than Thumper. He's doing Crossfit and following the The Paleo Diet and looks amazing. I'm doing physical therapy for my finger at a facility that also offers Crossfit, and his name is all over the bulletin boards there that show off the weekly standings. I went to a Crossfit session with him in October, and though the puke bucket and the manly yelling weren't for me, it was a great reminder that a narrow focus in exercise, like running on a treadmill over and over, is a quick path to boredom and doesn't create the broad-based strength and endurance that helps one succeed at all sorts of physical activities, like keeping up with a three-year-old.

So, there you go. My mid-range goal will be to improve on my Warrior Dash performance in April, and my long-range goal is to weigh around 200 pounds by the time I turn 40. If my sidebar becomes a list of short-term goals, successes, and failures, you'll know why.

Stuff and Things

Wow, it's been a month since I posted, and I left a vague reference to a curse word up as my lead title all this time. For shame.

Things are tough over here, but not absolutely horrible. I've not been to the gym, until today, for nearly a month. I've also been eating crap and drinking excessively. Coincidentally, I've gained 10 pounds. Yay!

Speaking of going to the gym today, it was almost an hour and a half excursion. I began to feel like Odysseus attempting to return home. The surprising rainfall amounts from (I think; I'm too lazy to look it up and confirm) Tropical Storm Hermine as she moved up from the Gulf of Mexico and across Central Texas flooded several roads, leaving our local YMCA completely inaccessible. We approached from one direction; the road was blocked. We took the long way 'round to approach it from the other direction; the road was blocked. So we chucked it in and went to the other not-so-local Y. I hope the building didn't get flooded; the boy starts a gymnastics class there next week.

A month off, and by the way, I could barely run for 10 minutes, let alone a full hour. I best get my act together if I'm going to run in Warrior Dash in November.

So yeah, I'm a fat lazy bastard. I'm way behind on a copywriting project. Like waaaayyyyyy behind. My wife is working most of the time and still under coal-to-diamond pressure to solve unsolvable problems for her family, with the people she's trying to help not always being so nice to her. I'm hosting play dates here tomorrow and Friday, and I haven't finished cleaning my house.

Hmm. What else? Oh yeah, I got peed on by one cat shoving him into a cat carrier this morning and scratched by the other. One has a chronic UTI problem that's getting beyond old and more than expensive. The other is apparently allergic to his own teeth and has a rare viral infection that gives him the permanent runs. I spent $375 to maybe, or maybe not, find solutions to these problems. I think I'll do the Happy Happy Joy Joy dance.

Oh yeah, and then, what with my wife working 14-hour days and burning out her brain cells and feeling guilty about it, and then burning out her brain cells again the next day and feeling guilty about it, we decided to just go ahead and close the door on the second child thing and cut out the stress of the whole "Now? Later? How much later, 'cause we ain't getting younger? Can we afford it? How much bodily damage will a second pregnancy do?" conundrum. Hasn't seemed to reduce the stress much, but it has managed to make me pretty sad. Maybe adoption? Probably not. Doesn't feel like the right thing to me. But little babies sure is cute...

And so then bitching about it makes me feel like I should say: I know we're blessed. The boy is a marvel, a wonder, a joy. He held court at the vet's office today, cracking up staff and customers alike. But also: even that, I mean, Lord, he just. Never. Stops. Talking. I can't think straight talking to the vet about this med for that cat, and that med for that cat, and how often and how much because he's chattering non-stop and asking questions peppered with "Why?" every 10 or so words and climbing on the stool when I told him not to because he'll tip it over and hurt himself and then he almost tips it over and I can just see the chipped teeth and split chin and I snap at him and the vet looks all uncomfortable and I'm feeling guilty again.

Wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Blessed. Wonderful. Lucky. And we are. But man. So much for not complaining.

Year In Review

So last July 4, I was in a funk and decided to make some changes, dubbing it the Self-Improvement Project of 2008-2009. Since it's been a year, it's time to see how I've done.

Goal #1:
Exercise for 45 minutes per day, three days or more per week.

I'll call this one a success. Some time during the year, I upped my goal to 4 days per week, which I haven't been hitting regularly lately, but I'm definitely hitting the 3 days per week almost every week.

Goal #2:
Drink two days per week or less.

Hmm. Yeah. Well. Uh, moving on.

Goal #3:
Watch TV for two hours or less per day.

I'll call this one a success, too. Some days I go over, but I've lived up to the spirit, if not the letter, of the goal on this one.

Goal #4:
Finish one book every two weeks.

Again, spirit if not letter. I've been reading much more, and that's a good thing. I almost never actually finish in two weeks, though.

Goal #5:
Stop being snarky about other people.

Well, mixed results on this one. Some people are hard not to be snarky about, but I think I've generally become more of a positive person this year, and I like that. I'll keep trying.

Goals for the coming year:

I don't think I'll codify it quite so explicitly this time. I thought putting it right there on the sidebar would motivate me, but it didn't really. I still failed at the drinking and the weight loss even with it right out there for the world to see, and I eventually took them down anyway. This time I think I'll just keep trying and not beat myself up too badly. I lost 15 pounds, and then gained 10. Most, if not all, of that 15 was lost while I followed the Weight Watchers program. I keep telling myself as long as I'm exercising, I can eat and drink whatever I want, but that's clearly not the case. So I'm going back to Weight Watchers, and I'm going to stick with it longer this time, even though it's tedious. I'm going to stick with it longer and have faith that it will eventually become less tedious and more automatic. Thumper loves pools, and I hate taking my shirt off in public. I really only want one of those two things to change before next summer, so I best get crackin'...

I Needed a Bump

Since Aerie's foot surgery, some things have fallen off the priority list. She's doing much better now, and I'm trying to get myself back on track, but it's hard. I've gained a few pounds; I can't understand how that happened since I more or less stopped working out and ate and drank whatever I wanted. When I did work out, back pain really affected my intensity and my motivation to do it again anytime soon. I wanted to find a yoga class to help with the back pain and refocus my attention on health, but cost and childcare were both stumbling blocks. So I started looking into yoga studios and gym memberships. Yoga studios didn't have childcare. Austin Kula Yoga had a toddler class at the same time as an adult class, but that doubled the cost, plus it's a long drive.

I was surprised by what I found at the YMCA, though. A month's membership costs the same as five classes at Kula, and it includes much more, like child care, and Aerie can take advantage of it, too, whenever she stops hobbling. So on Saturday, we joined the YMCA!

Thumper and I made our inaugural trip today. Yoga classes didn't fit into our schedule for today or tomorrow, but I should be able to give that a try by Wednesday. Today I stuck to weights and cardio. Thumper and I talked about going to the gym! He was excited about going to the gym! Let's go to the gym! Of course, he had no idea what going to the gym meant. I've never just dropped him off with strangers and then disappeared for an hour, so I wasn't sure how he'd handle it. When I came back he was sitting by himself, sucking his thumb and staring off into space. I caught his attention, waved and said hi, then stepped to the counter, out of his sight line, to sign him out. In those five seconds, he completely lost it, turning into a sobbing wreck. I asked how he did, and the woman at the counter said, "Not too bad, for a first-timer." I'm not sure what that meant.

For me, it felt good to get back into a gym. I had a Gold's Gym membership years ago, but I let it lapse because of the expense. I've been working out at home on my own ever since, and it felt good to be in a roomful of equipment along with a bunch of other like-minded people. I was a little surprised how crowded it was at 11:00 a.m. on a Monday. I'm looking forward to experimenting with times to find out when is my best shot of not standing in line waiting for a bench to use with the free weights.

Motivationally speaking, I'm hoping this will be a good thing for me. I need it, before I gain back all the weight I've lost. When I was sticking to the Weight Watchers, I had my most successful weight loss, but I really didn't like doing it at all. And psychologically, I think it should help me with the drinking, too, because I'm rationalizing the monthly expense by telling myself that the booze portion of our budget has now been re-assigned to the gym membership, so I can no longer afford to blow all that money on booze. That way we can afford the gym membership because we won't actually be spending any more than we already are. Win-win!

Not Progressing

Since I stopped counting Weight Watchers flex points, many months ago now, my weight loss has stalled. My enthusiasm for working out has cooled. And my caloric intake from alcoholic beverages has not gone down. So, here are some new goals:

No drinking Monday through Thursday.

Workout based on performance goals rather than time goals. If my goal is to work out for 45 minutes 4 days a week, it's too easy to jog for a bit and then walk the rest of the time. So goals based on average speed, I guess? I'll have to figure this one out. This may require some mathematics.

Wow. That was a lot shorter of a post than I thought it would be. Hmm. Oh, one of the guys at the SAHD playdate had a gender observation. I thought SAHD'ing would be fraught with sociological ponderings, but it just ain't. So I best take advantage of them when I can:

So we're hanging out at the playground, standing around talking while trying to keep our and others' kids from taking a swing shot to the head, when one of the dads says, "See, if that was a guy..."

He gestures, and we all look up. There's an SUV parked at the edge of the parking lot that overlooks the playground. Its engine is running. The driver is alone in the truck and appears to be watching the kids play. The driver is a woman.

"If we were moms and that was a guy, the police would already be here."

Aha! An opening for a thoughtful discussion on the implications of the perceived level of threat of a man versus that of a woman engaged in identical behaviors? Perhaps an exploration of the relative levels of cooperative action among groups of women versus groups of men? An opportunity to compare anecdotes of gender bias we've each experienced in our own lives?

No, not really. We just kind of glance at her for a second, and then we keep talking about Vegas. We're guys. That's what we do.

Self-Improvement Project '08-'09: Six-Month Checkup

So it's been a little over six months since I decided to use my blog to make some changes to my life. It's seems like a good time to revisit those goals and see how I'm doing. I lost 13 pounds, but I've plateaued and haven't lost anything at all the past several weeks. In fact, I think it's safe to say that all or almost all of my weight loss occurred while I was following the precepts of the Weight Watchers Flex Plan. I don't think I'll go back to it, though, because it's clearly not a lifestyle change that I can maintain. I hated the counting and calculating all the time. I need to find other ways to apply principals of portion control to my diet. I've been focusing on caloric output since I dropped the Weight Watchers; now it's time for me to focus on caloric input, too.

Goal #1: Exercise for 45 minutes per day, three days or more per week.

This one's gone pretty well, I think. I've even upped it to four days or more per week, and I think I can truthfully say I meet this goal on a regular basis. Not every week, but most. I think this is a lifestyle change than I can actually maintain.

Goal #2: Drink two days per week or less.

Uh, well, that one I pretty much abandoned early on. I think I'm ready to revisit the alcohol issue. It's a large portion of my caloric input problem. I'm not sure what my new goal will be yet, though. The 2 days per week thing didn't work very well. Maybe I need to be more specific.

Goal #3: Watch TV for two hours or less per day.

Doing well on this one, I think. We've got an hours-long backlog of recorded Lost and 24 to catch up on, so we must be doing well. I have to admit, I've got an embarrassing Biggest Loser habit, though.

Goal #4: Finish one book every two weeks.

I think I've only achieved this goal once, excepting the Twilight series, which is just too fluffy to really count. But I'm happy with what I've done. I've definitely been reading much more, and that's the spirit of the goal, even if I haven't exactly lived up to the letter of the goal.

Goal #5: Stop being snarky about other people.

Again, I think this one's mostly a success. Aerie and I still sit and snark about some folks now and then, but some of the people I was snarky about are no longer in my life, which is a relief. I thought this might help me transform into a more positive person, but I think the changes in my political thought and my future volunteering and the like will do more for me in that regard. I may never be the kind and loving hippie I should be, but I can approach it if I try.

Ah, Belikin

I'm doing pretty well on my goals this week, except for the drinking. I've met my workout goals, which makes me think I should up the goal to 4 per week. I probably should wait and see how it goes over the next few weeks though, so I don't set myself up for failure. I've watched less TV. I've read more. I'm still working on the negativity and the complaining about other people, though, especially in traffic. If Thumper is paying attention in the back seat, he's going to learn some real doozies of curse words to bust out on the Grandmas some day.

But really, drinking seems to be the toughest one for me. I don't [like to] think of myself as an alcoholic, because I function just fine. I don't miss work. I don't go into rages or beat my wife [because she'd kick my ass]. I get up every morning at 6:30 to take care of the boy. I mean, it has its negative effects on my life, but it's not ruining me. And I sure do like it.

I've been watching Alpha Dog on the treadmill the past couple of mornings, and there's a fifteen-year-old who goes to a party as a kind of guest of honor. Everybody knows him, everybody's his friend. He drinks, he smokes, he loses his virginity to two girls simultaneously after a rousing game of skinnydippin' Marco Polo. I watched it and thought, "That kid's doomed. He's going to spend the rest of his life chasing that moment, going from party to party trying to get it back, and it'll never be the same. But he'll keep on trying."

My first drink was a teaspoon of schnapps that Biggest Brother brought back from a year-long trip to Germany. He was eighteen; I was six. I remember that it was the most horrifying taste I'd ever had in my mouth. I thought that if this is what drinking is, I'm never going to do it. Why would anybody want to pour that toxic acid down his throat?

When I was fourteen, though, I took a two-week trip to Belize with my father and two other Boy Scouts. That trip was an [at the time] under-appreciated experience that really did open up my eyes about a lot of things. I learned that much of the world cares passionately about soccer, and we're the only ones who call it that. I learned that people live in crushing poverty and work back-breaking jobs. I learned that chicken necks in the stew can be a luxury brought out with pride and generosity for guests. I learned that treasures of the past aren't always preserved in museums; they sometimes rot away in the jungle far from the eyes of people. And the ones that are preserved in museums and private collections are sometimes there because they were stolen away illegally, for money. I learned that capitals can have dirt roads and open sewage canals. I learned what a junkie was.

But I also learned that not all nations have a drinking age. My father and I stayed with separate host families, so when the father of the host family asked me at dinner my first night if I'd like a beer, there was no one but me to say no. And I didn't. Belikin Beer was everywhere, and I drank as much of it as I could. And it was a wild time. I recall going to a party with my host brother, a party in a field on the edge of town. The people were so friendly and accepting of me. The music was pounding and joyful and alive. I remember lots of reggae and "Feeling Hot Hot Hot" sung by somebody other than Buster Poindexter. I remember saying no, thanks to the ganja and being afraid that people would laugh at me, but they didn't. I recall being told that I got my companions and I kicked out of a nightclub, though I don't remember that at all. I remember running through streets laughing while someone far behind us yelled and yelled about how he was going to shoot the white boys up with heroin, shoot them up right in their heads.

There were so many things about that trip that we did sober that were the best times of my life: swimming in a blue hole in the jungle, with no one else around; picking burlap sacks full of oranges, then eating them in the back of our broken-down truck, waiting for help and reading Oscar Wilde aloud to each other; hiking to Mayan ruins and watching the Belizean Boy Scouts hack up a huge python with their ubiquitous machetes; playing pool and drinking Coke from glass bottles; watching A Cry in the Dark in Spanish at the movie theater, along with a variety of kung fu movies. But to be honest, it was the drinking that really capped it for me. I felt more outside of myself, more a part of the world. And of course I [thought I] was doing it without my dad knowing, which had its own appeal.

So that was the beginning. I came home that summer and immediately fell in with the younger siblings of Big Brother's cool friends and the party circuit. By fifteen, harder drugs were in the mix, though it took me to seventeen to overcome my mother's warning that, because of the pneumonia I had when I was two, I'd die if I ever smoked. By the time I got to college, drinking was a well-ingrained habit. I used it to decompress during the days that I worked full-time and went to school full-time. I used it for the same purpose through some particularly rough marital troubles in the late '90's. And I can use just about any excuse at all to worry about it next week, or next month. So by the time I got to the point in my life where I don't think I need or want it as much, I'm pretty well-conditioned to do it anyway; there's an excuse.

Thumper woke up with a cold today, and he's way off his usual eating and sleeping schedule; there's an excuse. And if you drink on Wednesday and Thursday, you might as well drink on Friday; there's an excuse. And if you drink on Friday, Saturday's a goner, too. So I guess I'll applaud myself for my successes, not beat myself up too bad for my failings, and just keep trying. Now who wants a drink?