Weighting game

Several months ago, I had done so well. I watched what I ate and lost over 10 pounds. Then the inevitable backslide that so many supposed experts predict (and it burns me up that they were right).

However, I'm not taking this lying down. I have made specific efforts to exercise more and more-regularly. What really gets me is that for some reason, when I do these things, I reliably put on more weight than when I'm inactive, and immediately as well. I went from 215 to 218 pounds in just a few days, after running and lifting weights three or four times per week. This improvement borders on the miraculous for me, and I am discouraged at the Bizarro-world rules that seem to apply.

Is it water weight? Is it (snicker) muscle mass? Is it an increase in appetite or entitlement due to increase activity that causes me to eat more?

I don't know, but I know I don't like it. I know damned well that exercise provides a multitude of benefits, and that I'd be a fool to let weight fluctuations put me off. So, I won't.But still, it's troubling...

It's written all over my face

I have and love a singular inability to control my face.

If I inwardly suspect that you are full of shit, the muscles behind my eyebrows will contract, pulling the corners just a few centimeters to the left. My face will betray the rest of my body and silently but undeniably broadcast undiluted skepticism.

Similarly, if you've just barfed a half-baked conspiracy theory into my face or displayed a staggering ignorance of the subject upon which you're expounding, my eyelids will flap rapidly up and down, like psychic windshield wipers, trying to flick away the stupid before it really sets in.

This all amounts to a low-grade sort of mental telepathy, and over time I've noticed that my interlocutors have the ability to read my mind. What would seem like a disadvantage often turns out to be a subtle plus. Where it can be prohibitively awkward to verbally reject someone's whole program, it can be equally advantageous to do so visually. I've found that when people are trying to rent space inside your head for their own shabby luggage, the very wisps of doubt about their motives (or indeed their mental stability) can be expressed so quickly and directly that they themselves don't consciously perceive it, but nonetheless will pack up their ideological goods and make their way to the next sucker without so much as a sour puss and tip of the hat.

I do notice that I am more skilled at expressing hostility than welcome, but hey - stick with what you know. I wouldn't change a thing.

Happy faces for Uncle Cliff

I used to chat online with my brother a lot. Since he had moved away our busy lives made voice calls difficult, and since he got sick, he was stranded next to the computer a lot. It was a huge help in keeping us connected and rebuilding the tattered relationship left over from our youths.

My son would frequently want attention during these chat sessions, and he was very attracted to the cartoonish emoticons and other brief, goofy animations you could send to your correspondent; to say hi with a mummy, or let a vampire tell them their breath stank, or whatever. Pretty soon, Brian would want to "send happy faces to Uncle Cliff" all the time. Sometimes Uncle Cliff was at the computer on the other end, sometimes not; Brian like to interact with him, but was also well-entertained just clicking on the cartoons, which worked fine even if no one was watching on the other end.

My brother was good with my little son. He'd tolerate the toddling imp, his ridiculous energy, and even enjoy his crazy kid nonsense much more than I did. He could key into it in a way that I still wish I could better emulate. He also enjoyed the chat interaction with Brian, and would throw all the weirdest animations right back at Brian that he could find, and crack him up.

Right after my brother died, Brian would still want to "send happy faces to Uncle Cliff." I couldn't tell whether he intended that Uncle Cliff was on the other end of it, or if that's just what he'd come to call the act of clicking on those cartoons. Just to be sure, I had to gently explain that Uncle Cliff couldn't send happy faces back any more. It kills me, this contrast between nostalgia, tragedy and the unknowing innocence of a five year-old boy.

I still remember you, bro. We all still have happy faces for Uncle Cliff.

Aim for the moon

"Aim for the moon - even if you miss you'll still be amongst the stars." - W. Clement

I've seen or heard that quote three times in the space of as many days this past week. I'm not superstitious, but there are worse creeds to keep in mind as you go about your busy day. Perhaps I should grind a little harder and aim my sights a little higher for a while, see what happens.

My son, the new Buddha

My son has a friend at school who wasn't always a friend. As a matter of fact, they didn't get along at all for the first several months they knew each other. Then suddenly, he didn't speak with his usual youthful bitterness about his little foe, so his Momma asked him why.

"We just looked into each other's hearts, saw the good in each other and set aside our differences, and now we're friends."

Kids say the darnedest, most philosophical things.

Where does the time go? It goes, that's for sure

The last year or so has been a turning point in the way I think.

I've wasted many seasons, and usually the most I can generate is a little passing regret, like: "darn it, didn't go camping again this year." I've always had an "eye on the clock" when it comes to my own mortality, but this is the first time in my life where my thoughts have frequently have been on terms like: "Brian will never have another summer at six years old."

It's troubling, but at the same time I'm glad. Time is all we really have, and anything that helps me avoid taking it for granted is a welcome thing.

>sigh<

Time to get ready for work.

One more reason

CBS reports from Paris, France:

Two teens ... took to flashing their breasts to get money from unsuspecting men using ATM machines

Just one more reason I wish I was in Paris (currently $1204 per person with hotel thru Expedia.com). At least when you get mugged, you get groped and a look at some young tits. Beats getting hit over the head like an American.

Europeans are so far ahead of us, socially.

Voicemail grating

When I call you and get your voicemail, I make an effort that the message I leave is complete but brief, informative with as little unnecessary blather as I can manage. When you call me back immediately, without listening to that voicemail, and require that I relay all of that information again, it makes me want to stab you in the face with an icepick.

Perhaps this answers my previous open question to the universe: why do people leave cryptic, informationally barren voicemail messages? It is very possible that this tactic is not necessarily the mark of a lazy, socially inept shitbag, but simply a defense mechanism against such people.

Interesting animals, these humans...

Ha, ha

"Joke" on boat leads to four deaths

The men had been boating at the reservoir Sunday, when one man was pushed into the water as a joke. According to the Power County sheriff, that man couldn't swim. The other three men jumped in after him, and all four drowned.

Holy crap, this is just pathetic. I know there's some jokes in there, but I can't see weeding them out. This is human stupidity made thick and real. Ech, I can hardly imagine.

Cliff's funeral

We had Cliff's funeral yesterday. It was brief, but it did the job.

By "did the job," I mean that it gave a lot of us a chance to get together as a unique community and remember him. I'm turning out to be quite an isolationist, but I have to say it felt proper and natural to sit with people in this grief, and stand in front of them and try to tell them what I had lost, what they had lost.

Through lack of preparation (mostly my own), I allowed someone else to give Cliff's eulogy: his ex-wife's brother Chris. He did a fine job, and I felt a stab of shame that I wasn't up there doing it myself. Kirk, the pastor/priest/religious muckety-muck (I can't keep the titles straight) neared the end of the prayers and speeches, he offerred to let some of the attendees say a few words about Cliff. I was grateful for the chance to do so, and I sprinted out of my pew like a runner off the mark. I had been thinking for weeks about what I would say about my brother, and although wisps of thought would blow through my empty head, somehow a lifetime of experiences wouldn't line up and play nice for this presentation.

Still, I had been able to cobble together a few key points, that my brother was intelligent, compassionate and courageous, and that we'd lost a good man. I managed to walk the line between grief and stoicism without disintegrating and croak out a few minutes of this tribute in an anguish groan of a voice, which I wasn't at all sure that I could manage until it was done. It's not as good as he deserved (my brother deserved an army of people to fill that place and take a week to wail and praise his humanity), but it was an able attempt.

I was tremendously heartened by others who stood up to say a few words on my brother's behalf, two of whom were from his ex-wife's family. My brother had taken them into his home for months at a time when they had pitifully few other options, and helped to raise their children as some sort of a family unit at a time when their lives were in a tremendous state of fluctuation. I knew in the back of my mind that he had done things like that, but it was wildly bolstering to be reminded, and to know that those people remembered and still appreciated his generosity and sacrifice on their behalf. When I said he was a better man than me, this is just one example.

We collected afterward and I reflected on his openness with people and how it contrasts with my own detachment. He took to people much better than I ever did, warmed to them and accepted them with an open and generous heart, and I am only beginning to realize and admire the courage that that took. I am getting to an age where I can see more and more clearly that my own detachment is a huge mistake.

This is just one of the lessons I am taking from Cliff's loss. It's been a lesson for which the price was far too great - I'd much rather be ignorant and have my brother back. Since that's not an option, I'll have to do my best not to waste what benefit his passing has bestowed.

Cliff is gone.

My brother, Cliff Bickle, passed away yesterday at 6:20 a.m. after a long fight with a brain stem tumor that took nearly everything from him over time, before it finally did take everything, and a damn good chunk of something from me and the rest of his family, too.

I can't take the time to memorialize in this space or anywhere else just now because I have to work and it tears at my heart to think about it (although my wife and I celebrated and remembered his life just a bit last night). This post is just to plant a temporal flag that it happened and when. Soon, I'll have the opportunity to grieve and remember more appropriately one the damned few friends I had in this world.

Nadir

Today's post brought to you by Thesaurus.com.

Man, I've been feeling puny lately. Too much smoke and too much drink had apparently weakened me; that's all I can surmise. Then I caught a flu-like bug that raided each system that workaday illnesses can attack, starting in the gut, working into my sinuses and then through the throat, finally settling in my lungs, which feel coated with a layer of goo (probably because they are).

As fat and likely to thoughtlessly scarf junk food as I have always been, I've rarely had a problem with stamina. As little as my regular life demands of me, I've always been able to meet the challenge. Lately however, I've been panting for breath after only a few minutes' exertion, winded after what is even for a pudgy office-jockey a meager imposition. This must not stand.

The good news is that I have somehow managed to lose about 15 pounds in the last month or three, owing to a more careful examination of what slips into my shameless, vacuous maw. I am jealously vigilant of this recent development, being mindful of how difficult and near-magical the alchemy is that brought me to this improvement. While I am not impervious to temptation, I do make more room for resistance to the temptations of beer and sweets.

Even so, I have never felt so old, even as I acknowledge that each day I am literally older than I have ever been. Weakness and fatigue are not welcome in my shabby temple, even as I admit that I have taken it for granted for so long.

Let today be the low point, even as I hoist a few tributes to another tick on life's odometer. Let today be as shallow as my breath can be found to be. Let my energy reserves only climb from this point, my stamina increasing to new heights. Let my lazy, flabby ass find ways and pockets of time that I may put some lean, slow-twitch beef on this overly-marbled frame, and not be found so soft a target for life's challenges anon.

There's always a Hitch.

Christopher Hitchens is at it again.

Hitch 22: A Memoir

Writing books, being clever, and getting all showy about how book-writingly clever he is, living life to its fullest and skewering others in a manner verbally brilliant, (a manner that is both harmless and crushing to anyone found on the business end of his pen) Hitchens is so compelling that I am helpless not to watch whenever he is on-screen, online, or in print. If Mr. Hitchens took a grunting dump between two hardcovers and signed the front, you better believe I'd pay top dollar for it. And proudly show it to company.

This time, however, the subjects of the book are his own exploits and experiences. If you haven't seen portions of the media blitz he has undertaken, it's your loss. Rarely have I found promotional propaganda so enthralling.

I have added this to my birthday wish list and sent a quick e-mail to my loving wife, so if you're thinking of buying it for me (bless you), coordinate with my gal so as not to duplicate efforts.

I'm afraid I'm gaining my mind

All my life I've had this feeling of being out of sync. Apart, and wondering at all the strange activity of the collective I beheld. Who are these people, and why do they do this or that? It was an off-kilter view of the world and although it could be painfully lonely sometimes, it was loads of fun, and that more than balanced feelings of isolation.

One thing that has always generated lots of friction and heat in my head was my habit of contemplating, but comparatively little 'doing.' Of anything much at all. Not even self-interest or interest on behalf of others motivated me. That sort of cognitive lopsidedness generated jokes, quips, blog posts and general nervous energy that created lots of fun content inside my head.

Now though, I am doing more, learning more, opening my mind up to real possibilities in ways I never had before. I can't be sure, but I suspect that getting out of my mental Lazy-Boy and embracing the real world may have diverted or stunted what I thought was a more ingrained character trait, my out-of-step experience of the world.

I am improving the frequency in which I pick up my guitar. I bought an old, hand-me-down electronic keyboard at a yard sale and have ordered a used book to learn it. I am awash in a river of data at my day job, whether I like it or not. I am drinking from the fire hose, and it feels a lot like it sounds: overwhelming.

One regret: my creativity for comedy has waned to a frightening degree. I will head to an open mike this week, but not because of a burning desire to get onstage again or a bursting sensation that I must get some new material out.

All comics experience lulls or writer's block or periods of doubt, like any creative artist. I hope it passes, because it feels like impotence, and I'm not okay with that.

Birthday wishes

Oh, another birthday is rounding third and about to steal home. I am thrilled and feel what the religious folks called "blessed" that I have no material or emotional desire that has not already been met. What luck and joy that I can honestly say that a giftless birthday would not leave me lacking in any way.

As true as that statement is, I'd be mad not to ask the universe for a few small things. One of my good fortunes is that some people in my inner circle might want to buy me something. It would be downright selfish of me not to make a list of birthday wants, I tell ya!

This is all I can think of for now. I used to own the two movies below, but I was foolish enough to lend them to a stupid, blackhearted dog who never returned them. Live and learn.

Amazon.com: Thomas Bickle: my stuff

Movie: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Movie: Shallow Hal

Blue Devil Action Figure

That's all I can think of for now.

Appended 5/22/10:

Religulous (2008)

Hitch 22: A Memoir

Bobbing in the surf

Holy crap.

The tempo of my day job has gone from Hank Williams to Metallica. Chores at home lay incomplete. Comedy and other interests have taken a back seat to... to what? Nothing, apparently.

Life has got me by the tail, and I struggle to catch up, keep up. Keeping a minimum of commitments is the most I can do right now. I am the master of nothing. I feel like a sock trapped at the bottom of a load of laundry, jostled and sloshed about.

I expect that balance, strength and confidence will return eventually, but for now, I am treading water.

Rejuvenated

I just wrapped up a luxurious stint of 5 days off work in a row. I admit that I am a somewhat happy with myself for finding the right attitude towards this time off, and spending it wisely. It was rejuvenating, as it should be.

How could someone screw up days off work? Me, that's who. Usually I get so tensed up at the opportunity to embrace the gift of unrestrained time I get set on this frenzied autopilot and do nothing but housework until a better idea comes along. Inevitably I end up at the end of a stretch of time and look back at a trail of domestic breadcrumbs that the birds are nearly finished eating already. Laundry and dishes are a noble-enough goal, but there's got to be more to life.

And so there was.

• I took my family to a trout internment camp in Sonora with my wife & son and "caught" some of the easiest fish on the planet.
  
• I ate like a king (but not like a hog), including genuine French red wine and Brie cheese. Also including some fresh trout.
  
• I picked up that damned electric guitar and dumbly plowed forward with attempts to look less like a chimp with a slippery handgun. Minor progress made, but progress!
  
• I picked up a book on 3D animation that I've had for months and ignored with heroically stupid stoicism.
  
• I got some exercise, which is always a good, if intermittent thing.
• I performed comedy at a place two hours away for no money; kicked a fair bit of ass at it, too.
  

...and some other stuff, but that's the lion's share of it. I am facing a stunted work week without much regret at all, and that is a very good thing. There's a lot of good in my life, but chances to stop and breathe and reflect are too few. I'm very glad I had my head on straight for it, rather than screwing myself out of it with a the wrong attitude.

I bore myself, sometimes

Ach. I'm sick of my own navel-gazing. Looking back over my blog, it's not (quite) as full of self-interested, how-do-I-feel-about-me narcissism as I recalled, but it's still too much. Even this post is all about it, even as I reject it.

I've tried to let it flow, write it out of my system and look towards the day when I have something external and interesting to blog about. You've got to give yourself creative space to deal with the things that bother you, and work it out.

I suspect part of it is that I've increased the "action" side of the ledger, which has always been disproportionately small compared to the "ruminate" column. I've spent most of my life up in my frontal lobe, gnashing my teeth about all the things I could do. Now that I'm doing a little more about all these Big Ideas, I think there is less friction, less heat and less light generated there. Less goes in the blog, but more is going into real life, and that's not a bad thing. Unless you're a blog reader. Sorry about that!

But, enough is enough. One reason I haven't blogged more lately is that I can't think of anything to write that I or others would want to read. I've reached the end of the creative cycle, the well is dry and I've got nothing new to rant or lament. Until I kick start that process, I'm just gonna be quiet.

Something will come around. If it doesn't, I know how to prime the pump. Failing that, I'll just wait some more.

Talk soon!

Let's get the obligatory, "I haven't blogged in a while" B.S. out of the way:

Holy shit, has it been more than two weeks since I blogged? Gee.

There, that's better. For a little more thought on that:

As I've mentioned before, I have a problem with focus. When I can arrange my thoughts and efforts toward a specific goal or topic, my ability to remain creative with that goal vanishes. It is a maddening blind spot on my mind's eye. The flip side of that is that when I am forced to labor for another's ends, as most of us are for much of our adult lives, the peripheral items that catch my eye seem to stir up much more useful grist.

In other words, when I'm stuck at work mining for cubicle lint, I am much more likely to dream up and obsess about things that strike my fancy. Things about which I might blog someday. Which brings me to my point:

Whilst I do still toil under the master's yoke, I have been engaging more and more in activities and experiments that, rather than insult and spurn my creativity and such-as-it-is intellect, they yank them in, grind and twist them in their ruthless clockwork and spit them out dirty, tattered and exhausted.

I have more to do and less to bitch about, which makes for a spindly blog entry, especially when you're accustomed to belly-aching about things outside your control.

This turn of events should make for an entirely different and no less interesting blog - one that describes the acquisition of hilltops and slaying of dragons. But it involves a switching of gears that I have hardly pondered until now, much less undertaken. I'm not used to acknowledging solutions and goals attained and describing successes; I find that it puts me back a bit!

In any event, I have been doing more 'doing,' and less postulating and navel-gazing. Therefore, the skimpier blog. This is a good thing. Once I can rework the machinery of my self-expression, it's entirely possible I have much to say.

We'll see!

Tired

Yesterday was just about perfect.

I woke up early, felt pretty good, and started the day by lifting some weights. I've been making another in a string of countless attempts to exercise with regular frequency, and over the last two weeks I've made a good run at it.

After that, it was housework for several hours straight. My brother-in-law John is coming for a visit this week, and if we don't make a big push over the weekend, there's no chance the place won't look like Hell when he arrives mid-week. We should have company every week; maybe then the place won't look like we rent it out to slaughterhouses and fraternities on the weekends.

Weather was perfect, and the afternoon and evening saw me building a nice little campfire in the firepit, and farting around with it (and a few Red Tail Ales) until after the sun went down. I played with my son throughout the evening, and generally had a great time.

One drawback of note: spring is here, and on the very day we set the clocks forward, I started a familiar routine of waking up sneezing. Here we go again.