Awwww....how cute!

Vicki and I were walking up to my apartment the other day when a young man behind us kind of chuckled and said "“that's so cute, holding hands"”. I assumed he meant that the cuteness was in seeing a couple of old farts (to him, he was twenty-something) displaying this simple act of quiet affection in public. He's a nice kid that I've seen around several times and was not making fun of us...just pleasantly amused. It did get me to thinking about public affection and, being fascinated with human behavior, I started taking note on how people do it these days.

There's not much of it.

For the most part, I just saw pairs walking around as if they were each wrapped inside a bubble. In restaurants I saw couples talking, gesturing, shoveling food into their mouths, babbling on cell phones, or staring off into space....but no touching. Walking around stores I see men pushing carts and looking bored with women intent on their lists and searching the shelves. On the streets, I never even saw a couple walk side by side...one was always leading a pace or two. Everywhere I looked, there was the distance of a couple of feet that gave off the signal of an infinite void.

No wonder my young friend was amused. It seems to be somewhat rare to see two people who actually enjoy each other...who are in love and stay that way whether at home or out in the world. I find that rather sad. When did our culture become one in which letting others see affection is considered inappropriate? Are most couples these days just together without being really together? Are they too embarrassed?

Or is it just my limited observations? Perhaps I need to continue to look around and take note of how couples act in public. Anyway...I'll keep holding Vicki's hand, looking at her with unabashed affection, and probably even grab a deep passionate kiss when the mood hits. If you see us, just chuckle and call us cute....I don't mind.

DAY 27

current music: Whoop there it is - Tag Team ** in honor of Joshua

Do people really do that?

I do a lot of surfing on the internet. Sometimes for information related to my profession, sometimes to check up on the latest posts from other bloggers that I have come to enjoy, often just to amuse myself. Hey....beats television these days.

Anyway, I was clicking through BlogExplosion this morning and somehow got on to a little porn site that somebody had set up as a project for themselves. Now, understand, I'm no prude. There's really nothing that can shock me...which is why I don't particularly enjoy porn. I'm pretty well acquainted with what a naked woman looks like and don't need pictures to remind me. Still, I have to admit, this site took me a bit by surprise. Not only did the particular positions that the couples use look complicated, it looked downright uncomfortable. It got me to thinking about whether I am missing out on not being able to have sex standing on my head while somebody pinches my nipples with a pair of pliers.

Ah well...just an old fuddie duddie, I guess.

The good news is that I have gone below 200 lbs today. That's the first time in years, folks. I'm on a roll now.

DAY 25

current music: All Revved Up With No Place to Go - Meat Loaf

Gawd, it's hot!

I'm back. Of course, I never left....though I was computer disabled for several days. The old dinosaur that I was nursing along finally decided that it just wouldn't go another second despite all the heroic efforts at life support and went to a far, far better place. I had it for a dozen years and will miss the old clunker. I hope the new one that I bought (for a fraction of what I paid for the old one) will give me half the service.

Upon returning from a week long absence, I find that there is really nothing new to write about. I'm still doing the Body for Life challenge. My weight is stubbornly hovering on 200 lbs but my bodyfat percentage has dipped to 29%. That's still a very high number, but it tells me that quite a bit of FAT is gone from my body! Exercise has not been as intense as I would like because it's been so gosh danged hot and humid lately. It's the kind of heat that just saps all the energy out of you. Fortunately, it's also the kind of heat that kills your appetite...so I haven't been eating much as well.

As for the relationship. Well, it's going on six weeks since I met Vicki. This relationship seems to be very different from any that I've experienced before. For one thing, we seem to be communicating with each other constantly....whether by talking, touching, or just being in each other's presence. I'm not sure how to explain it other than saying that I must be truly in love...probably for the first time in my life.

Took long enough.

DAY 22

current music: Sugar Magnolia - Grateful Dead

meme tagged

Okay...so JC tagged me for this little meme thing that I've seen on several other blogs lately. Well, here goes. I'll try not to get too personal.

10 years ago:
I had been working in a job that I just absolutely despised and I took a big chance; I quit and took a part time job as a mental health technician just so that I could get into the field that I was going to college to learn about. Not an easy task for somebody in their late thirties but it turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made. Not too many people get to find their life's calling.

5 years ago:
I had watched my daughter and son turn into adults and go out into the world on their own. At about this time, I started to realize that my wife had too much baggage to ever love me and that...even more importantly....I didn't love her either. Real intimacy in the marriage quietly ended about this time. My weight shoots up to 240 lbs.

1 year ago:
I knew the marriage was over and admitted to myself the need for a divorce. Surprisingly, this enabled me to lift out of a steadily increasing depression and enabled me to become myself again rather than what somebody else had always wanted. By this time, I have two grandsons by my daughter. I look at my health and begin thinking what I must do, as a middle aged man, to make it to be an old man.

Yesterday:
Went out for dinner with Vicki. Each day I spend with this woman just makes me fall deeper in love with her. I have honestly never been happier than I am right now.

5 Snacks that I enjoy:
Chunky Monkey Ice Cream
Nachos
Peanuts
Custard
Chocolate in various forms

5 Songs that I know all the words to:
Stairway to Heaven
Radar Love
Sweet Emotion
The entire album of The Wall
Bohemian Rhapsody

5 Things I would do with $100 million:
Make my kids millionaires
Travel
Write
Finally break down and buy a new computer
Develop a fund for the seriously mentally ill

5 Locations that I would like to run away to:
Nepal
Africa
Antartica
New Zealand
Space station

5 Bad habits that I have:
Coffee
Cigarettes
Slob
Pick nose in traffic
Shyness

5 Things I like doing:
Being with Vicki
Reading
Meditating
Annoying my cat
Eating

5 Things I would never wear:
Spandex
A tie
A tutu
A bra
A thong

5 TV shows I like:
Babylon 5
Star Trek
24 Hours
Becker
Simpsons

5 Biggest joys of the moment:
Vicki
my kids
my grandkids
my job (most days)
did I mention Vicki?

5 Favorite toys:
computer
pickup truck
camera
cool little model starship Enterprise
various toys that I share with my cat


whew....that was a long one. Thanks a heap, JC! I guess I'm suppose to pass this on to five others but, ya know, I don't think I will. I did this for JC so that she could accumulate the good karma but I can't come up with five that haven't already been tagged by this thing. So...if you want to....go ahead and consider yourself tagged and do the meme on your own blog. Come back and tell me about it so that I can go take a look.

It's Not a Body for Life World

I love this program. Body for Life is such a common sense approach to eating and exercise that it truly is something that can be a way of life for anybody. The difficulty in the BFL program is not in doing it...but in trying to fit it into a work world that is stuck in the old '3 meals a day' rut. For those of us who spend eight to ten hours each day devoted to the task of earning a living, BFL is a challenge in more ways than one.

I think that's why so many people give up on it. The program itself isn't hard to understand, but it can really be a pain in the ass to follow some days.....especially those hectic days when one is "trapped" in a task and not able to get to a prepared meal or somebody decides to treat everybody to a box of donuts or cake. It's easy to slip. Go and read the testimonials of all the BFL winners and you hear story after story about how they stuck to the plan to the letter the whole way through. They seem to have effortlessly managed to make the world conform to their needs each and every day.

Screw 'em.

I don't have that kind of power in my environment. My days are unpredictable and all the planning in the world will not help me when I am called to do an assignment that will take me away from any opportunity to eat for most of the day...and I return to my office finding a spread of food left from a lunchtime meeting.

I slip. I eat and I feel guilty and lousy for doing so....but I'll be damned if I will just give up and resign myself to living in a body I don't like. So I keep doing it, every day, resolving anew to do something about my body and my health and my life.

I hope you do too.

DAY 12

current music: One Toke Over the Line - Brewer & Shipley

A.M. or P.M.?

One of the things that I'm struggling with is when to do my exercises. My gut feeling is that it is better to do them first thing in the morning because I've fasted for several hours, making losing weight a bit more efficient, and it gets exercise out of the way for the day so I don't have little unexpected things pop up that might make me miss a session.

Yet...I'm not one of those that is rarin' to go first thing in the morning. The thought of jumping out of bed, putting on my gym clothes, and driving across town to sweat just doesn't stand a chance against the one overriding thought I generally do have at that time......coffee, coffee, coffee....gimme, gimmie. After work, I'm pretty much not in any mood for exercise as well. Especially these past few days with high heat and humidity.

I've tried a compromise between working out before and after work. I've gone about one or two in the afternoon, on my lunch break. I'm not sure that I like it. A lot of children seem to be at the Y at about that time and it's a bit difficult to concentrate on what I am doing when a dozen or so nose-pickers are playing grab-ass all over the gym. Plus, it's a pain to shower and change in the middle of the day.

Ah well....I'll probably go back to doing it first thing in the morning....just make myself get out and do it whether I feel like it or not. Not today, though. I farted around all morning and have to get to work soon.

DAY 10

current music: Ballroom Blitz - Sweet

To Serve and Protect.

Last night I had a bit of weirdness. While flipping through the channels and wondering if paying for cable was really worth it anymore, I heard a tapping on my door. Now...my apartment complex is a secure building. Nobody gets in without a key and any visitor must use an intercom to have me unlock the door down in the lobby. The only one who I figured could be knocking on my apartment door would be a neighbor....probably that asswipe down the hall who keeps trying to sell me magazine subscriptions all the time. Anyway, it's almost bedtime, I'm tired, and I think to myself "fuggit...I'm not answering". This is what I consider the privilege of having my own space. I don't have to answer the phone. I don't have to answer every IM message that flashes on my monitor. I don't have to answer the door. People that I really want to speak to or look at know how to get ahold of me. Besides, who knows who may be at one's door at that time of the night, unannounced.

But the knocking continues...louder.

So I give up and answer the door to face two uniformed cops. They ask for some guy I've never heard of and act as if they would really like to come inside for a look around. I step outside, closing my door behind me, and tell them who I am and that I'm the only one living here. They ask me about a bunch of other people I've never heard of, how long I've been living here, my birthday, my brand of toilet paper....just about everything. They ask to come inside. I say "no", which seems to have irritated them somewhat. They then ask me if I can prove that I live in this apartment, and I tell them that my name is on the directory downstairs and they are free to call up the apartment manager and confirm who lives here...why....the manager might even know something about the guy who apparently lived in the apartment before me.

This seems to have been an idea that never occurred to this pair of Topeka's finest and off they go without even so much as a thank you, sorry for the inconvenience, or kiss my ass.

Oh...forgot to mention yesterday that my weight was down to 202 lbs. My goal is to break that two hundred pound barrier by the end of the week.

DAY 9

current music: Hush - Deep Purple

Now I can really be a couch potato.

I've recently come to understand that I need a few things in my apartment to make it habitable. If it was just me, I wouldn't need much in the way of furniture. A chair. A bed that is reasonably more comfortable than the floor. A desk to work from. And maybe a tv tray to sit my burrito on while I watch the tube. However, upon inviting my new found love over to my flat one evening, I was somewhat embarassed by having nothing to offer her than a spot on the carpet while we dined on my fine micronuked cusine.

Vicki wasn't going to put up with any of this spartan cheap-ass furnishings. Seeing as how both of us planned to spend a lot of time at my place, she decided that I at least needed a sofa. So off we went a-hunting for this particular piece of furniture. Not an easy task for somebody who generally doesn't have any sense of style at all. I mean, I buy nothing but gray socks just because I don't want to be bothered with mixing and matching when I dress. But she would help. She would give the advice that I sorely needed in order to avoid dragging home some piece of shit that even a dog wouldn't lay on.

Lemme tell ya. New sofas cost some big bucks! Vicki would point out something that she really liked and after looking at the price tag, it was all I could do to keep from clutching at my chest and checking my underwear for leakage. Stuff that was more modestly priced was about as comfortable as a brick and looked as if it might last a month or two, if nobody ever actually sat on them. I was about to resign myself to buying a piece that looked good, felt good, and was built well...though still costing much more than I really wanted to spend....when we happened to mosey into a place that refurbishes and sells used furniture and she found this beauty for my inspection.



Seven feet of perfect condition sofa. Comfy, comfy, comfy. Less than a hundred bucks. I tell ya, I was one happy camper. Vicki helped to re-arrange the haphazard decor of my apartment in order to fit the thing in here and even helped me in hauling the beast up three flights of stairs. Whatta woman!

Free day today. Off to the custard stand for me!

DAY 7

current music: Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith

Independence

Happy July 4th!

I am back....rested, refreshed, and recharged to begin a challenge. This is an especially good day to begin the body for life challenge. It could be said that I want to declare my independence from wanting to transform my body into committing to the revolution that will accomplish this goal. My weight is 206 lbs and my body fat percentage is 31.0.

Thanks to everybody who made comments on the last few posts. I guess most of ya'll can tell that I've pretty much fallen head over heels in love with somebody. It seems to be going very well...just getting better and better each day. I realize that some might find it a bit goofy to gush over my feelings of this remarkable woman that has come into my life.....well....bite me, then. I've been waiting most of my life to finally find my soulmate, and my excitement at what is going on is not something that I can keep to myself; especially on the one place where I tend to write whatever is on my mind at the moment. Anyway, I know that most who stop by can sense my happiness and are glad for me....I do appreciate that.

Well, here goes. Off to bed early tonight so that I can get up early to do cardio. Goal weight is 180. That's 26 pounds in 12 weeks. Let's see if I can do it.

DAY 1
current music: Can't You Hear Me Knocking - Rolling Stones