Off the shrink's couch

Today marks two months for Big Man Getting Smaller, and 32 pounds gone. It is working, and I can already tell that it is working a little better now that the Red Sox are finished keeping me up past midnight. I appreciate the warmth of the feedback I have gotten from so many people who have been in touch with me in various ways about this blog, and even the fact that at times the central struggle of BMGS seems shared. We are doing it.

Which leads me to share some thoughts about another writer’s efforts….

A good friend of a good friend (does that make her a pretty good friend? I’d like to think so) writes a regular column for her community’s weekly paper, the Free Press down in North Attleboro, and I have become a frequent reader. Written under the column title “This Too Shall Pass,” Donna’s work is a little bit Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, a little bit Beans of Egypt, and all her own. I get something good from it each time I give myself the time to sit with it for a few moments.

Last week she did a bit of a retrospective on how her homestead came to be known as Poverty Flats in the column, and how the column itself came to be and evolved along with her family. Having lived for a while in what my family and out neighbors called “Poverty Hollow” in Sandwich as a child, in a family that was by no means conventional, I was predisposed to identify with what she wrote.

A couple of paragraphs in particular caught my eye because they shed some light, as Donna wrote about the place of her column in her life and the life of her family, on the importance that this Big Man Getting Smaller blog has taken on for me:

“My children have grown up in the pages of the Free Press, and relatives and friends have kept up with life here at the Flats. I guess you might say that This Too Shall Pass was the original blog which you didn't need a computer to enjoy.”

And, earlier on:

“Through it all, my column has kept me off a shrink's couch, and saved loads in medication costs. It helps one's ability to deal with the ups and down of daily life to be able to write about the events and have other humans read and share the load. I have no idea why this works but it does.”

Well, yeah, exactly. Writing in interesting, witty, and self-examining ways about our lives, as Donna does, takes some time, patience and guts, but there are rewards. It isn’t something that everyone can do.

It puts things in perspective, and without presuming too much on my own friends’ tolerance for my own loquaciousness, it can be a wonderful way to stay in touch. I couldn’t say it any better than Donna said it, so I hope it won’t bring the Free Press’ lawyers down on my head that I have quoted two paragraphs here.

Meanwhile, Happy Halloween. I am pleased and proud, this Halloween to be the father of a 9-year-old axe murderer.

If he darkens your door this evening, all I can tell you is: "Don't be a hero. Give up the candy. Better to lose the candy than your neck."

Wednesday's Soundtrack

A story song from 1962 ... it's a little bit Halloween, a little bit Poverty Flats, and a little bit Poverty Hollow: the lesson of Dickie Lee's "Patches" is that inter-class romance can be a killer.

Arrogant, pretentious, and prideful

This is the cover image of Bowl of Cherries, the debut novel of Millard Kaufman, who celebrated his 90th birthday last March. Yes, I said “debut” novel. As in, his first novel.

You gotta love that. I do. I listened to an interview this morning on the radio, and l read some print media notices.

Then I ordered the book, which is published by an absolutely wonderful indie publishing house called McSweeney’s. I’ll let you know what I think. (It’s not like Mr. Kaufman doesn’t already have his writing chops. He wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award-nominated Bad Day at Black Rock (1955). and was a co-creator of Mr. Magoo. But still.)

But first, just this. This is why we live. This is why it is worth pulling out all the stops to get back into great shape when we are 57. Because there are decades and decades left, and also, there might be a book signing party when we are 90. And we’d want to be in shape for that, looking our best, and feeling our best. (I type this as I listen to Daniel Schorr’s commentary on this week’s news on NPR. Yes, he is older than Mr. Kaufman.)

It would be easy, at any point, to throw in the towel. To say, “No Mas,” or just to quit trying for anything but the pillow at the end of the day.

But life is best when we live it for its best moments, and refuse to accept the sentence to mediocrity implicit in Thoreau’s line: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

It is arrogant of me, and pretentious, and prideful, I am sure, to see the best in myself after having faced the worst. To envision great productivity and wonderful results in my future. But it is also a gift to myself. Sometimes, at my most hopeful, I even believe that it is also a gift to my children, to their children, to my loved ones, to my friends and fellow citizens. Life is long, or could be, and one never knows.

So I try to work out almost every day, and to keep the calories 1000 to 1500 a day below my daily “maintenance level” of about 3200. Not because I’ll ever get those sixpack abs back, or run a sub-4:40 mile again, or be a babe magnet, or recover my wildly delusional dream to someday play third for the Sox. But because I want to be around for a long time, do some serious good work, and enjoy my life and my loved ones.

If I am around at 90, I want to expect every bit as much of myself as Millard Kaufman does of himself. I wonder what his next project is.

One of my several literary heroes, D.H. Lawrence, used his fiction to struggle with the issues in his life and to remake himself as a man. For now, I will admit, this same sort of struggle is one ulterior purpose for my blog. But I probably shouldn’t call it “ulterior.” My weight-loss goals and my everyday struggle to renew and remake my life are, at some fundamental level, one and the same. (And I am untroubled by the sheer ridiculousness of the implied comparison).

So I will write today. And do my other work. And get to the gym. And read my daughter’s blog. And hang out with my 9-year-old son. And email my friends. And count calories.

Saturday's Soundtrack

This one may seem insufficient as a dance tune, unless you are really, really in the moment with it.

The artwork is amazing, as is Ginsburg's reading.

Here are links to the parts:

Howl Part 1 by Allen Ginsberg

Howl Part 2 by Allen Ginsberg

Sunday Soundtrack

Ah, medication....

This may be the perkiest song ever recorded by a good band. I'm not totally down with it. If you watch the video it won't be hard to decipher which character I identify with. But it's okay. A perky song can be a kind of place-holder until my medication kicks in, yes, Doctor?

I do like REM a lot. If it weren't for their other songs that I like a lot I probably would never have listened to this one. Here are the other songs:

Nightswimming

Man on the Moon (with Bruce!)

Losing My Religion

Everybody Hurts

One other thing that I like about Michael Stipe and his band is that they commit themselves to the videos, which tend to be pretty good.


Monday's Soundtrack

A nice season comes to a nice conclusion for the Sox, playing a nice game.



I have to admit ... I am a little glad it is over. Now I can get back to eating right and getting to sleep at a decent hour!

Tuesday's Soundtrack

It's difficult to describe now how important it was, growing up in a sleepy little town on Cape Cod in 1965, to be able to hear the occasional messages like this that slipped through the seams of the dominant culture.



You'd always think, "Whoa, what's he getting at? Oh, yeah, it's that thing again, that thing that you think about all the time...."

On topic

Tomorrow will be 8 weeks since I started this, and it has gone better than I expected it would go. I was thinking last night after the little post about the Sox that I should probably be a little more disciplined about staying on topic. Maybe it is a fine line, because I do get some nice feedback about the tangents and I do think that the challenge of taking off this weight is, importantly, one that takes place in the overall context of this occasionally multi-dimensional life that I am living. But I'll try to make sure going forward that I focus at least partially on the specific effort to "get smaller" several times a week.

Meanwhile, just in case you just showed up and thought this was a blog about baseball or music or politics, I will take the liberty here of pasting links to my past posts in their original chronological order rather than the usual blog protocol of reverse order. I do like to write, don't I?

• ▼ August 2007 (2)
  • When I was just 17, if you know what I mean....
  • A burger a month?

• ▼ September 2007 (28)
  • 3516 calories
  • The cake was calling my name
  • For now
  • Rocket science
  • What's up with the shredded wheat for dinner?
  • Blueberries
  • I’ll keep coming
  • The chicken or the egg?
  • Burrito heaven
  • September 11
  • The quinary in the coal mine
  • Happy trails
  • Tasting the coffee
  • A couple of the comments from the past few days go...
  • Kindly step outside the vehicle, sir
  • On the run
  • Fresh strawberries and cream
  • Nap and tuck
  • The arithmetic of losing a pound
  • Man Woman Big Small
  • Fresh Pond
  • Use 'em and lose 'em
  • The key to the plan is the plan
  • Not Pretty Enough
  • Just like I knew that I would....
  • A dark-eyed enchantress from Libertyville
  • Oh Danny Boy
  • Just like a government mule

• ▼ October 2007 (20)
  • Sticky situations
  • Stay out of the kitchen
  • Tuesday's soundtrack
  • Danger
  • Helping Hands
  • Said she'd never been in trouble, or even in town
  • 10% Smaller
  • Q&A
  • The arithmetic of weight loss, as of 10/12/07
  • Viva la difference
  • Creakiness and joy
  • Songs in Service of the Basic Notion that Great Co...
  • Sometimes when you start walking you do not know w...
  • A patsy to his own delusions
  • Sound and fury, signifying....
  • A fundamental struggle
  • As for the Sox....
  • Student of the month
  • Catastrophic
  • Sox take 13-1 lead into 7th

Even after all that, I still gotta have my music. Music gets me through so much, including this.

Thursday's Soundtrack

Warren Zevon, "Werewolves of London"

The mailbag

Got a nice email from my friend Ned with some good links, so I am excising a personal reference and reproducing it here....

Steve,

The video of Bruce singing "We Shall Overcome" while we take a tour of the Katrina devastation led me to Google some sites.

What is being spent on Katrina relief

What could be spent on Katrina relief

What ACORN is doing now in the 9th ward:

A running tally of what the war in Iraq is costing:

As Garrison Keillor always says, "Be well, do good work and keep in touch," and as I would add

GO SOX,

Ned

Sox take 13-1 lead into 7th

It's just one game, or 2/3 of a game to be precise. Maybe the Rocks were rusty or something. But here's the thing. If the Rocks can't beat Beckett in his 2 starts, the only way they can win the Series is to take 4 out of 5 against the other 3 guys. Is that happening? No, it says here.

Nuf Ced, to quote the original Gaelic. But it will still be fun to play the games. Or, to give an important distinction its due, to watch the games.

Catastrophic

Fire. A few months ago, when I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, I didn't get it about the fire. His fire-ravaged post-apocalyptic earth was perhaps the result of nuclear disaster, yet now, at the same time, I am beginning to get it about fire. The fire could keep coming. It isn't hellfire, but it isn't an accident either. Water here, fire there. Out there, it is the driest it has been in over a century. The planet will have the last word.

I just spoke to my daughter Kip on the phone. She's a transplanted Boston girl making her way in LA, but the last few days she has been at her grandmother's in La Jolla, surrounded by smoke. It's hard to get my head around what this experience must be like there, with ash falling like a bad joke from the sky everywhere, smoke rising up in frightening billows, and lovely La Jolla overfilled with people scared to death of where they have come from and not knowing when or if their lives will still be there when they go back.

It is every bit as frightening and catastrophic as 9.11, but it remains to be seen if it will inspire a fightback. There are causes, but they do not submit easily to campaigns of hate, being so close at hand. There are things that could be done, but they would take discipline and rigor and real concern about people and the planet. They do not involve invading any other countries. They may require a look in the mirror.

I shouldn't get started. This is no time for ranting, is it? I'm not sure. I am proud of my daughter for helping out at Qualcomm, and I hope that she doesn't inhale too much smoke.

*************************************************************************

Unencumbered

Wednesday's Soundtrack

That was me at 17, in 1967, making a move in a race on a Saturday afternoon in October. It's good, even now, to be able to summon that kid's heart and toughness for an important struggle, or, sometimes, just to get through the day. He was always ready. He could always do what had to be done. Whatever it took, day or night. Good chance he passed that guy just ahead of him in the teeshirt.

I figure that I will be living in whatever I make of my body for another 30 years. I know I'll never have that one back, too many nicks and dings. But I can get back a lot closer to that, and why wouldn't it be worth the effort?

Stood there boldly
Sweatin in the sun
Felt like a million
Felt like number one
The height of summer
I'd never felt that strong
Like a rock

I was eighteen
Didn't have a care
Working for peanuts
Not a dime to spare
But I was lean and
Solid everywhere
Like a rock

My hands were steady
My eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose
My steps were quick and light
And I held firmly
To what I felt was right
Like a rock

Like a rock, I was strong as I could be
Like a rock, nothin ever got to me
Like a rock, I was something to see
Like a rock

And I stood arrow straight
Unencumbered by the weight
Of all these hustlers and their schemes
I stood proud, I stood tall
High above it all
I still believed in my dreams

Twenty years now
Where'd they go?
Twenty years
I dont know
Sit and I wonder sometimes
Where theyve gone

And sometimes late at night
When I'm bathed in the firelight
The moon comes callin a ghostly white
And I recall
Recall

Like a rock. standin arrow straight
Like a rock, chargin from the gate
Like a rock, carryin the weight
Like a rock

Like a rock, the sun upon my skin
Like a rock, hard against the wind
Like a rock, I see myself again
Like a rock

Words and music by Bob Seger

Special bonus track, apropos of nada

Student of the month

My daughters were never skeptics about their old man when they were little. They called me “Little Man” 20 years ago, for reasons that I am sure had nothing to do with this blog or its naming. I think it was a nice counterbalance for them, a way of taking me and my deep voice and authority and bringing me down to their scale. It always made me happy that they felt comfortable to do that. They are 29 and 27 now, and for many reasons they do not need to re-name me to bring me down to their scale.

My son, who is 9, is more of a skeptic. Not only about me but about nearly everything. That doesn’t keep him from applying himself very seriously, which is great. He does his homework without being told, he is very good to his mother, and he is the October 2007 Student of the Month at the American Martial Arts Academy in Belmont.

He takes some interest in my blog. I’m pretty sure he’d prefer if I looked like a guy on a SoloFlex commercial. I get no points for having looked like that 40 years ago.

But he did say “Good” when I told him the other day that I had hit “30” in pounds lost.

Then he said, “You were in the 20s for a long time.”

True enough. I started at 273.4 on August 31.

It took me 3 days to lose the first 10 pounds.

Then it took me 20 days to lose the second 10.

And 28 days to lose the third 10.

I explained that weight loss does slow down a little the longer you are at it.

Then I explained the more important reason, which may be evident in the food and exercise logs here but about which I may not have been properly analytic.

It’s the Red Sox. Sort of.

I’m not just making a silly excuse. About 8 months ago I stored my TV in the basement. It was taking up too much space, and I almost never watch TV. I grew up listening to the Sox on the radio, and I kind of think that baseball was made for the radio, or radio for baseball, or something.

But comes the postseason, and I am watching a good chunk of every game. When they were playing early enough I could watch at the gym while I was on the elliptical. Now they are starting all their games at about 8:30, and the gym closes at 6 or 7 on the weekend.

So I have been a regular, game nights, at the Newtowne Grille in Porter Square. They know me there. A pint is $3 and 146 calories. The food has a few more calories. I have allowed it to put me over my daily calorie target a number of times. Not enough to gain weight, but to slow down the process of losing it.

So, there are only 7 games left. Some I will watch in other settings. But I will try to limit myself to just 2 or 3 at the Newtowne Grille, where I am sure they can survive without me counting their calories. If I stay on track with this, maybe it won’t take me 28 days to go through “my 30s.”

Tuesday's Soundtrack

"At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair
So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing
Pretty nursery rhymes shed memorised in her daddy's easy chair."



Marianne Faithfull, "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan"

"At the age of 37
she knew she'd found forever
as she rode along through Paris
with the warm wind in her hair"

Annie and I saw Marianne Faithfull perform live in a kind of recreated cabaret setting at the ART in Cambridge in the mid-90s. She's a remarkable performer, partly for the shocking transformation from what she first seemed when she appeared on British invasion shows as a teenager in the 60s, when one wasn't sure if she was anything more than Mick's arm candy. That was selling her way, way short.

As for the Sox....

This is not a baseball blog, but....



Next?

The Sox host the Rockies in Game 1 of the "World" Series at about 8:35 pm EDT Wednesday. Should be a good series. Despite coming out of the generally inferior National League, the Rockies took 2 out 3 from the Sox in interleague play this summer, by lopsided scores, and have won 21 of their last 22 National League games, which is nothing to sneeze at.

The Sox are a more pedestrian 7-3 in post-season play this Fall, but seem to be popping on all cylinders now. In their 7 victories they outscored their opponents 59 to 12.

The Rockies will have had to cool their heels for 9 days when they play again. Which team will show up, the guys who were 21-1 since September 15 or the also-rans who were a mediocre 75-71 for 5 1/2 months?

None of that matters. They have to play the games. And both teams have proven they have a lot of heart.

Monday's Soundtrack

So many blessings in my life these last few days. My daughter Kippy and I are like two blogs passing in the night, but she inspires me every day with her courage, heart, wisdom, humor and resilience.



This is my favorite Jimmy Buffett ballad, full of grace and wistfulness in the chronicling of that which we fear most in our youth, that which we accept without ever surrendering and sometimes make into a new and wonderful blessing as it comes inevitably upon us, because we really have no other choice: age.

A fundamental struggle

30 pounds today, which pleases me much more than 29.5.

I seem to have moved beyond a little plateau, by drilling down on the basic elements that have been working for BMGS these past 7+ weeks: pay attention to the calories, and work them off. I shall keep it up.

It seems from the emails I get that nearly all my 50-something male friends are fighting the good fight when it comes to weight. We can do this. There are powerful forces working against us, but together we can fight the power!

To succeed, for me, it has required that I treat this struggle as if it was really, really important. There are ways in which I think it is important, but others in which I know it is trivial. But if I let it become trivial for me, I will fail.

My pal Stewart wrote the other day about the importance, also, of focusing on the things that are really important:

“Do good. We really are in fundamental struggle for soul and future of this country and our kids. Weigh in. We need your voice--in big fights and little ones. For instance, great news about Merle Haggard. Every word and action for democracy and people and justice matters today--great or small. Don't mean to meddle or tell you how to spend your time. But you have a gift for writing. People will read what you write. Values matter more now than ever. The country hungers for honorable and fundamental values and for folks to voice those values.”

Word.

He is right about every bit of it, and I accept the responsibility and the challenge, even as I am still feeling my way into acting on that acceptance again after lo these many years.

That said, I am drawn for a moment back to trivia.

A good night for the Boston 9 last night. Their $70-million right fielder redeemed himself after a season that had some fans calling him Nancy Drew rather than J.D. Drew. (Not me, I am a Nancy Drew fan). Tonight their $103-million #3 starting pitcher has a similar opportunity. They put it away so early and easily last night that I was able to vacate the bar sometime in the 4th inning. This was a good thing. I had worked out at the gym shortly before the game, and consequently was more than a little thirsty. Bud Light is probably not the right way to rehydrate, but it was cold and good, and I had allotted myself the calories for 4 pints. Problem was, at the rate of the pint per inning that I was sucking down, I don’t think I could have gone the full 9 innings if my team had needed me.

I first heard today’s soundtrack back in the mid-80s when I owned a community bookstore called the Dorchester Reading Authority. I used to play a Celtic music show on the weekend, which may have been a precursor of some kind to Brian O’Donovan’s program, and this song seemed to get play every week. Well-deserved play.

Go Sox!

I'm trying not to use sex to sell this blog, but tonight it is important to stand up for what is right.

Soundtrack for Sunday

I would never steer you wrong. This is a song for all ages, all races, all souls. Listen, drink in the music and the lyrics drawn directly from a man's letters to his son who had made the crossing, and the images. It is just an amazing fusion of music and narrative, and yet entirely artless.


The song was written about 25 years ago by a fellow named Peter Jones, and this recording features Robbie O'Connell, Mick Moloney and Jimmy Keane.

"I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."
--James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Sound and fury, signifying....

Through most of my 20s and my 30s I was a community organizer, working with poor folks who were in many ways a lot like my own people, all over the country. I worked with great groups like ACORN and the People’s Alliance in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine and I trained organizers and community activists all over the country. I regularly worked 70 hours a week kicking ass, taking names and helping people make a positive difference in their lives.

I bring that up now not only for the obvious reason why a 50-something guys brings up all the things he did in his 20s, but I was thinking about how important it was to me, back then, to do significant work. I had put my writing on hold to organize for social change, and when a friend like Stewart Acuff or Larry Ginsburg would ask me what my bottom line was I would say that I just wanted to be responsible for as much good organizing to change as many people’s lives as I could, in any way I could. Whatever my success with that goal over the course of many years, I have to acknowledge that it changed over time, as my children got older and I began to think about looming tuition payments and eventually struggled through some serious difficulties that I created in my own life and the lives of people I loved.

Now, here I am, 57, and working at various writing gigs while I create a more or less daily blog that on several levels is all about contemplating my navel. It has come to this.

But I do not despair. My purpose here is not, primarily or initially, to achieve something of great significance. (Duh, that’s a good thing, hmm?). I’d like to keep getting into better and better shape so I can enjoy life more and have more of it. I’d like to stay true to my path, learn as much as I can, share some of it, and enjoy some music with friends and passersby.

It is all going pretty well. My weight has been on a plateau for about a week, but a good pal emailed me: “Don't feel sluggish about your blog. If you are at a plateau, then tell your readers. Just be honest, like you have been since day one and they'll love you for it.”

I like love, whether or not I expect it here.

Sometimes I do think about whether this is all just an exercise in self-absorption. A close friend of my ex-wife, a woman who in the past has been very good to me and mine, sent me a zinger of an email in which she asked not too cryptically: “Still on the pretentious Bus are we?”

Anyone would be a fool not to understand that the best friend of an ex-spouse tends to be placed in the role of crucible (if that can be a role, which I am sure it can’t but I am hurrying a little here) for some of the anger that the ex does not always get to express in a generally amicable parting. I don’t hold that against anyone, and I appreciate the honesty. Here’s most of what I wrote back, hoping not to be too defensive either of myself or of my blog.

“It's possible, but I didn't see that route listed when I got on, if this is a bus. As in pretense? Or pretend? I don't know. I parse the words not to play a semantic game, but to wonder honestly about your meaning. I will grant that both the premise and presentation of the blog are self-absorbed by definition, but I hoped that by mixing in liberal amounts of honesty, self-deprecation and attempted humor and entertainment (and by the mere and I think obvious fact that when one starts anything by admitting to weighing 273 pounds there is some shame, if not humility, in the enterprise), I might pull it all off while also accomplishing the face-value goal explicit in the title of the blog. I'm sure some people read it and consider it ridiculous, including those who know me and those who don't. I guess I can take your question or implicit statement that I am ‘still on [any kind of] bus’ to mean that you see it as part of a past pattern that I have revealed before. I am open to that idea, and surely it is all of a piece because it is all me. But while I have [screwed up] in the past, I have tried to own it and be responsible for it in different ways. This seems different, and positive in my intentions. But if I come across as full of myself in a simplified way, and in doing so give anyone who is pissed off at me (or whatever) another confirmation that being pissed off at me (or whatever) is the right response to me, I'm not bothered by that and I do not blame anyone for having that response….

“Maybe the whole thing is a waste of the 40-45 minutes a day I have been putting into it, but it began with some real desperation about the 273.5 that was flashing back at me from the scale's digital readout, and a hunch that I could accomplish a few things in the process. I guess I will just have to see.”

Which is true. I will. Have to see.

But meanwhile, another email I got overnight came from, Mark, an old friend who is a damned good writer in his own right. He wrote to thank me, implying that somehow my blog had got him writing poetry again.

Go figure. Do I really believe it? Not so much. Do I believe that it worked for Mark? Absolutely. Does it make me feel that there can somehow be some significance in what I am doing here for a little while each day?

Just enough.

Thanks, Mark. Keep writing.

Saturday's soundtrack

My son's mom and I saw Tracy Chapman perform one night on the waterfront here. She was so good I can't even remember who she was opening for. She's with us this morning, opening for all of us with today's soundtrack.

Ordinarily I don't pay a lot of attention to the visual montage part of some of these Youtube video's, which is unfair of me since their creators are far more talented at what they are doing than, say, I am at creating this blog. But this one of "The Promise" is kind of stunning, almost enough to make up for something like the last few seconds being clipped off at the end of the song*.



*If you want to hear the whole song, this time with some of that ubiquitous footage of the colossally but perhaps unbearably cute Harry and Hermione, here it is.

A patsy to his own delusions

I will keep this short, since I have already spent more time than usual on the soundtrack.

I was hesitant to “put myself out there” as I did yesterday with the Blues that have been playing as my soundtrack lately. I’m probably like a lot of guys in that whatever pain I feel when I am feeling pain never seems as bad as the pain that I imagine I will feel if I tell anyone I am feeling pain. Hope you kept up with me there.

Anyway, yeah, it wasn’t easy to fess up to that, but it brought me blessings:

· people I care about reaching back over to care about me. Anyone who thinks he doesn’t need some of that sometimes is just a patsy to his own delusions.

· me getting mindful enough, because I wrote a little bit about it, to figure out things I needed to do to improve my day, my week, my life. I took a nice long walk, had dinner with a friend, talked to my younger daughter on the phone, sent flowers and a teddy bear to my older daughter, ate right, applied myself a little better to my work, and went to bed at a decent hour.

Something else: I said in yesterday’s post that I might show up at my daughter’s cross-country meet (she coaches). A few minutes later I learned she had just had an appendicitis attack while on a mini-vacation on Amelia Island and is in the hospital in Jacksonville. She’s in the second trimester of her first pregnancy, so it’s nothing routine. But she’s okay, and baby, my first grandchild, is fine. So it is no accident that I was feeling blue yesterday morning and Sunday.

In the Port Huron Statement, they said “Everything is connected.” I don’t know if I buy that. I guess my version would be the tautology: “When we are connected, we are connected.”

Going to work out late afternoon, then drive down to Plainville for GA.



Thursday's Soundtrack

Singin, pickin, & politickin....

I don't apply a political litmus test to baseball players like Curt Schillin or singers like Kid Rock. But that doesn't mean that I can't be a little bit happy to hear my NPR station toutin a program this mornin by talkin about how Merle Haggard has become a Democrat. Used to be that the only things Merle really knew enough to sing about were lovin, fightin, prizzin and drinkin. Can't be a bad thing if he is addin to the list.

Sometimes when you start walking you do not know where you will end up until you arrive there. So, too, with writing. Sometimes. When you start.

The last few days have revealed a slight dip in the usually relentless sugary cheeriness of the Big Man Getting Smaller. Surely this can’t be a result of the Sox being down 3 games to 1 in the ALCS, can it?

That may be a part of it, in a mix with being a little tired, working too hard, working out too hard, missing people who are close to me, listening to too many sad songs, and so forth. It’s always something.

So today I’ll get out of the house a little and take a walk, talk to my daughter Kippy and best friend, maybe even take a drive out to Waltham for my daughter Moriah’s cross-country meet this afternoon.

Tomorrow I’m heading down to Plainville for a GA meeting to celebrate the 2-year anniversaries of two very good friends. I’m bringing the cake, and it looks like it will be a good one, from the picture on the bakery website.

I’ve been basically on course with the regimen of BMGS, even though I have gained a pound and a half, so I am confident that my progress here will continue. No workout yesterday, which affects my day to day weight, no doubt.

Come to think of it, I haven’t been to a GA meeting in 12 days, which is the longest I have been without one in over a year. This is no accident. Ever notice how it is always the little things?

The point, I guess, is that the things that work in our lives don’t just work for what we intend them for. Often they work in all kinds of other ways.

I started going to GA 8 ½ years ago because I had to deal with an enormous problem I had with the stock market, with gambling, and with my life. GA was a great fix for that problem, but it also became, over time, a really important part of my ability to keep my life in general on an even keel, to keep moving forward, to be the man I want to be, the father I want to be, the friend I want to be.

So, another person might say, “Fine, you haven’t been to a meeting in 12 days, but you haven’t gambled, so no problemo, right?”

But I have a better vantage point. I’m the guy who is living inside this body (that is 10% smaller than it was 7 weeks ago), and I sense a more generalized cost to my failure to make a meeting in the past week.

My regular Plainville GA meeting is a kind of home to me, complete with a kind of family. I need to be there. Tomorrow night, I will be there. With the cake. (Of which, by the way, I absolutely intend to have a piece.)

Plus, it wouldn’t hurt if the effin Sox could step up and earn their considerable keep tomorrow evening while I am at the meeting!

Monday's sound track

Whoa.

Unfortunately I can't embed this one in the site the way I usually do, but this man just sings the hell out of this song. I stopped keeping up with the latest in country music around the time I left Texas in '78, so I don't know a thing about Josh Turner, but he knows how to cover this old George Jones song. It's enough to make a happy man sad or a sad man sing.

Songs in Service of the Basic Notion that Great Country Music is a State of Mind

No real time to post today, gotta go pick up my son. But I can share some great music.

You Never Even Called Me By My Name - David Allan Coe

Darlin - Bambi Lee Savage

Me and Bobby McGee - Janis

I'm Easy - Keith Carradine

Far Away Eyes - Stones

He Stopped Loving Her Today - The Possum

Sunday's Soundtrack

Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush



Congrats to Danny's mom (my ex), who completed the Bay State Marathon this morning in 4:02! I'm creaking around the house after running 4 miles yesterday. Annie ran 26.2 today! Not that I am making comparisons....

Creakiness and joy

Too beautiful out to go to the gym today, plus, the gym closes at 7, plus, my spirits needed a lift … so I have just returned from a nice jog to, around and from Fresh Pond.

Almost 2 minutes faster than the last time I did it a little over 3 weeks ago, so I am moving in the right direction. What a gorgeous day.

There was a high school cross-country meet taking place as I finished up. I noticed teams from BB&N, Tabor, and Vermont Academy, and hollered a few words of encouragement to the kids as they were heading toward the finish, as I usually do. Brought me back 40 years ago, and also 10 or 12 years ago when I used to root on my older daughter at her meets when she was at Milton Academy and Wellesley College.

This is the kind of day that makes running cross-country a total joy. For the BMGS, the joy was mixed with some creakiness, but I will still take it.

The arithmetic of weight loss, as of 10/12/07

No gimmicks whatsoever here.

My current weight: 245

Current number of calories to sustain my present weight, as 57 year old man, 5’11”, 245 pound male with “moderately active” (3 to 5 workouts a week): 3,271 calories

Current daily calorie target: 1,750 calories

Weekly calorie “deficit”: 1,521 x 7 = 10,647

Calorie equivalent of 1 pound: 3,500

Projected weekly weight loss: 10,647 / 3500 = 3.04 pounds

Actual weekly weight loss, last four weeks: 3.12 pounds

Is there any clearer proof that it is sticking to the arithmetic that works?

Q&A

Q. Do you wait until after you work out to weigh in, so that you can claim another pound or so of weight loss?

A. Hell, yes! Because it allows me to claim another pound or so of weight loss. Also, because I understand my own psychology well enough to know that one more thing that will motivate me to work out will be the weight loss I will be able to experience, and record, when I step on the scale after my workout.

Q. What would you be doing this weekend if you were in Florida?

Driving to Sarasota to see old pal Nick Wyman open in the pre-Broadway premiere of A Tale of Two Cities at the Asolo Repertory Theatre's mainstage, The Harold E. and Esther M. Mertz Theatre.

Q. What is your weight loss goal?

A. I would like it if this Body Mass Index calculator would tell me that I am “normal weight” when I plug my numbers for height and weight into it. That would happen, barely, if my weight were 173.5. That would mean a total weight loss of 100 pounds.

Q. That seems dramatic. Do you have an ulterior motive for wanting to lose 100 pounds?

A. Yes. Then I could write a book and entitle it Big Man Getting Smaller: How I Blogged My Way to Losing 100 Pounds.

Q. Wouldn’t you just gain back all the weight on your book tour?

A. No. I would keep blogging, keep working out, and raise my calories per day intake to about 2,700 calories.

Q. What else would you do if you lost 100 pounds?

A. Keep up with my son, and maybe even my daughter who is a terrific runner and the best prep school cross-country and track coach in New England.

Q. Aren’t you getting old to be talking about keeping up with your kids?

A. Yes, but hope springs eternal. A mere 40 years ago, at about 165 pounds, I ran a 4:38 mile. I would settle for a 6-minute mile next Spring, and 17:30 in the weekly Fresh Pond Road Race.

Q. You are delusional.

A. Is that a problem?

Q. Don’t you have work to do?

A. Yes, and so I blog.



Bryan Ferry. What a cool bastard he is. He is so close to being me when I sing Dylan in the shower. And yet, he is so, so, so far away.



Listen, at the very end of the song, for the goofy laugh. I know that laugh. It is the laugh of a bloke who cannot believe his good luck in life.