Archive for April, 2011

Still waiting to begin my exercise regimen 4-20-11

As I put on my t-shirt this morning, I felt it fitting snugly.  My wife watched me put on the t-shirt and she began laughing.  She said I looked like a ten year old girl about to blossom into puberty.  She blamed me for making her laugh because she said she saw the look on my face as I looked in the mirror.  I’ll give her a pass on this one.  But it doesn’t explain all her other laughing as I get dressed other days.

No matter how many times I promise myself to start exercising, I never follow through.  How and where can I find the secret to motivate myself?  I think I could make a million dollars if I discovered that secret.

I think about what I used to be and what I have become.  I used to do 225 pull ups and 500 push ups every day.  I trained in Jiu Jitsu for three years (four days a week).  I was in shape.  I was cool.  I was athletic and could count on myself to handle anything.

Now, if I do three pull ups, I’m sore for a week.  Luckily, I can still do pull ups and that puts me ahead of many of the fat and sloppys out there, but knowing what I was and what I am now, it is hard to accept the transformation.

Two Nations. 4-19-11

Fat and Sloppies are an ungraceful bunch.   Because we choose inactivity, nose to the grindstone work ethic, and tasty diet over exercise and eating right, our thighs rub and our backs are out of whack.  The physics of carrying an unwieldy blubber packet doesn’t allow us to walk a straight line either.

I thought about this as I spent ten minutes watching an obese woman pathetically try to enter the hotel pool.  I noticed her uniquely shaped round cellulite body as she approached the pool deliberating on an entrance strategy.  I quietly ruminated that she isn’t the typical wealthy looking hotel client. It was heartbreaking to watch her because I imagined I might be watching my future.

She wanted to swim, but couldn’t figure out how to get into the pool.  The pool stair system in this foreign hotel was made only for thin, graceful people.  This fat woman couldn’t use the stairs.  She had to lay down on the ground and try to roll into the pool.

She tried every way to lower herself into the pool.  She couldn’t even climb down the stairs because her arms were too weak and her body was too heavy.  She held onto the metal railing trying to lower herself face first, that didn’t work.  Then she tried to lower herself butt first, but that didn’t work.  She kept slowly turning around like a dog chasing its tail.  Still she couldn’t get in.

I wanted to offer help but what was I to do?  Others watching this drama had concerned looks on their faces.  I was engrossed in real life Fat and Sloppy theater watching this woman attempting to get into the pool.  My daughter jarred me from this trance when she asked me, “Daddy, what is that lady doing?”  Almost everyone on the pool deck had watched this spectacle.

Finally, with a splat noise that fat makes when it hits wet ground, I look over and see the woman plopped down on the ground. She decided she would roll into the pool.

Once she was safely in the pool, I looked up at the other people at the pool and noticed that the thin ones walk normally and the fat and sloppy ones all had something wrong with their walk.  I’ll be verifying my theory in the next days, but I already know I’m correct; and I’ve discovered that two nations inhabit America.  One nation wants to be thin again and the other will become Fat and Sloppy as they enter middle age.

My Navel 4-18-11

When I was thin, I used to keep my navel clean.  Lint from my t-shirts accumulates over time and gets stuck in there. I gave up cleaning my navel years ago when I joined the fat and sloppy nation. I remember the frustration of not being able to get that junk out of there. I hoped my inability to clean my navel would prod me to stop eating so much. It didn’t help, and I got used to not cleaning my navel.

It had been years since I thought about my navel and that I was once thin enough to clean it; until yesterday.

I’m on vacation with my family and I have been swimming with my daughter every day for a week. After we got out of the pool, I was laying on the chase lounge and my daughter looks over at my stomach and says “Daddy, what’s that in your belly button?”  I hadn’t seen inside my navel in years.  It was stuffed with junk.

I told my daughter what it was and she immediately volunteered to clean it herself.  She wanted to dig her finger in there and clean it out like a nostril.  My navel isn’t like a nostril, its way bigger, and it has to be cleaned gently and carefully.  Not only am I fat and sloppy, I’m also a delicate flower.  I tell her “I’ll get it.”  Still, she insists, and I tell her “no” again.  I have to quickly find a way to clean it before I lose this great viewing angle.  This will require a potentially embarrassing public naval cleaning; something I have never done before.  But since I’m married and fat already, I’m going for it.

The only cleaning implement I had handy was hotel room key card.  I was making some cleaning progress with the edge of the card when (and this is where the embarrassing part comes in) I look up, and the beautiful 23 year old bikini clad waitress is standing over me.  She announces that our lunch is ready.

I ate my grilled chicken and french fries quickly.  I couldn’t wait to get back to my room to clean my navel.  There were no tweezers around, so I used the hook from my nail clippers and began dislodging years of accumulated, forgotten, hardened lint.  It took a while, but finally I got it all.

Haircut 4-3-11

I got my haircut last night.  I used to go to a salon to have my hair cut, but with the economy the way it is, I now go to a barbershop.   Barbershop or Salon it doesn’t matter, my head hairs are slowly disappearing and reappearing on other, unappreciated, parts of my body.

My barber, Rick, is a nice guy.   Rick cuts my hair in a forward direction to make it look like I have thicker and more hair than I really do.  I appreciate that even though I still see a lot of head skin between my loyal remaining head hairs. Getting my haircut from Rick allows me to experience a feeling that I rarely have anymore, vanity.

The other day I was playing with my daughter and she said “Daddy, you have a hair in your ear.”  It was in my ear all right; growing in my ear.  I got my tweezers and plucked it out.  It wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last ear hair.

Maybe it’s because I see fewer head hairs that I am noticing hairs growing in strange unwanted places. I don’t see the evolutionary use or need for me or any middle aged American man to grow hair on stupid places.   My ass doesn’t need any more hair, but yet more hair grows… why?   My neck, shoulders, ears, knuckles, nostrils and eyebrows are now places of vigorous hair growth.  My head is jealous and I’m confused.

Imagining that no one will notice I’m getting old if I remove those crazy hairs, I’m on constant pluck patrol for these unwanted stowaways.  They are removed as soon as I see them.  I remove them and then humiliate them by flicking them into the sink and washing them down the drain.  I satisfy myself that I will never see those hairs again.  Yeah, right.