Muddling Through Somehow

My wife is a Christmas junkie, and through the years her overwhelming enthusiasm has managed to virtually erase my own Scrooge-like tendencies. And you can't really pull off a humbug pose with two young kids nipping at your heels--even the hardest heart melts like Frosty in the greenhouse at the sight of your own offspring bursting with joy on Christmas morning.

So I'm not trying to resist the cheer this year. I'm letting it in, and I'm extremely grateful to be able to celebrate and revel in the love that surrounds me. And isn't that what Christmas is really all about, Charlie Brown? (Enough with the shepherds already, Linus. Save it for right-wing radio.)

And yet, there's a reason that the suicide rate skyrockets this time of year. Circadian rhythms, shorter days, the constant barrage of manufactured blah blah blah...It's not that for me, so much, actually. Instead, I am reminded of very specific losses during the holiday season, in ways that we probably all are, and those wounds feel as fresh to me now as they did over a decade ago.

I see a couple ghosts, in other words, more clearly than ever this time of year, and I can't pretend that I don't. I don't want to pretend that I don't, because I still love them, I still miss them, and I'm grateful that they're still here, even if it cuts me deep to catch a glimpse of them in an empty chair next to the Christmas tree. I'll take those reminders over real absence any day, and in my own way I'll try to thank them for hanging around to keep an eye on me and help guide me forward. Because God knows I need them, now more than ever.

So here's to a clear-eyed, open-hearted holiday, absent of expectations and filled with real love and joy. And lots of booze. And chocolate.

Speaking of which, I'm still ploughing through on the fitness front. I've lost 7 pounds in the first week and have slipped into a fairly workable exercise routine. The real challenge lays ahead, of course, and I'm taking Christmas day off to indulge as I see fit with the belief that I can hop right back on the wagon the next day. We'll see.

And because there is no way to avoid Christmas music in the Huntington house these days, I present to you what has become far and away my favorite holiday song, sung with just the perfect bittersweetness by Sweet Baby James--assuming I can get this embed code to work. I don't care if it's cheesy--it's a flat-out beautiful song, and it perfectly captures my mood right now. So have yourself a merry little Christmas, now.

Drop Meets Bucket

Four days since the leaf turned over and I'm still kicking. Three pounds down, ain't ate no cheezburegers, and I've managed to get in three more or less vigorous workouts. I dare say I'm feeling spry, if not quite unstoppable. I'll take it.

But of course the land mines await my approach, as always. Fuck it, it's Christmas! And I'm so stressed out and work is so crazy and somebody ordered pizza for the lunch meeting and I didn't have time to go to the gym and then I'm in Vegas for work, and you simply *can't* be healthy in Vegas, because really, what's the point? And then it's my wedding anniversary, and then it's my son's birthday party, and then it's Valentine's Day, and I'm still *so* busy and somebody ordered Chinese for the lunch meeting and then...

That's the old story, anyway. A process of surrender, one day at a time, as if I were completely and totally powerless in the face of a vast conspiracy intended to convince me to give up. As if I had no say in the matter whatsoever, as if my life was not my own.

Bullshit. Please, finally, sitting here closer to 40 than 30, let me be done with that weak-willed, passive numbskullery. Every moment, every action or refusal, is a choice. My choice. Whether I like it or not. Man up.

Four days in, three pounds done, and I ain't ate no cheezeburgers. I'll take it.

PSFAADSSAYHBITLIIIA

Today is the day I kick off Project Stop Fucking Around And Do Something Serious About Your Health Before It's Too Late If It Isn't Already, or PSFAADSSAYHBITLIIIA, for short. Go me!

My goal: lose 75 pounds by my next birthday, September 20, 2010. That's approximately 10 months away, which means I need to average somewhere around a loss of 2 pounds a week in order to hit my target. 75 pounds is a relative drop in the bucket toward a truly healthy sustainable weight, sadly, but I've decided that I need to set measurable goals and proceed toward them in a challenging but realistic fashion. One day at a time, and all that. I'm using a free online nutrition calculator/food diary/exercise journal called Fit Day to chart my progress, and I'm going to track and analyze everything I eat, keep a food journal, and record my exercise.

I started this morning, and I've managed to make it to 3:00 PM without killing anyone. I hit the gym at lunch and trudged through 45 minutes on the elliptical, and I've been drinking water and sticking to a low-fat, relatively high-protein menu that is a bit of an improvisatory work in progress. I'm going to exercise five times a week and weigh myself every morning.

It's important to me that I hold myself publicly accountable toward my goal, so I'm going to do my best to post here as often as I can with status reports. If it goes off the rails, I'm going to write about it. If I succeed beyond my wildest dreams, I'm going to write about it. Which means this blog may get pretty boring, and I'll probably stop updating my facebook status every time I post something. So if you for some reason you want to monitor the progress of my fitness initiative, check back directly on the blog as often as you'd like.

Here's to desperate measures...

Talking 'Bout It!

My six-year-old son tends to repeat a certain phrase, usually an exclamation of excitement or distress, repeatedly throughout the day to greet certain developments. A catchphrase, if you will, much like an ESPN announcer or a bad comedian. Often, these phrases are slight variations on actual phrases commonly used by English-speaking humans. Most recently, he's been saying "Talking 'bout it!!" whenever he gets really excited. An example of conversational usage would go something like: ME: "Hey Robbie, it sure rained a lot today didn't it?" HIM: "Talking 'bout it!! There were huge puddles everywhere!!"

Now I of course find this to be the most endearing thing in the world, but it's also interesting to me in a linguistic sense. In this case, it seems like he's conflated two common phrases he's heard on TV or from the adults in his life--"tell me about it" and "that's what I'm talking about!" and unknowingly created his own, new exclamation. I love that language works that way, and I rue the day when he will stop creating his own Robbie-isms and start saying exactly what all the other kids are saying. That will of course happen (and if it didn't he'd probably eventually be publicly humiliated by some asshole kid on the playground), but it will mark the end of certain part of his childhood when it does.

Even the youngest of us don't stay young forever. That's the closest thing we've got to certainty in this life.