2011-01-07

Harraton sent me this awesome glass (the picture is crap, sorry) for my Secret Santa gift. It’s awesome, and the perfect size for a good end-of-the-week Makers’ + Ginger Ale.

I liked it enough to put a ring on it…

An interesting thing happened today: I sold my high school class ring.

There’s a place in town that has “We Buy Gold!” on their sign, and I never really thought about it until a few months ago they had a sign offering “at least $100” for class rings. Suddenly I realized, “Hey, I have one of those.”

Then, just as suddenly, I forgot about it, until I recently came across the ring. No one has worn it since The Wife (or, at that time “The Girlfriend”) in college. It’s been moved from Pennsylvania to New Jersey to Florida to Ohio. I’m surprised I haven’t lost it.

I decided to think about it for a few days. Here’s something you may or may not have guessed about me: I’m a Sentimental. I tend to hang on to things, especially things that have sentimental value. My high school class ring felt like it should be something I was sentimental about… but I’m not.

It wasn’t the best of times, it wasn’t the worst of times…

It was then that I realized that I don’t have particularly strong feelings about high school. I went to a small Catholic school (there were 120 students in the entire school… my class was 42 people, and about 20 of us had been classmates since first grade). I wasn’t picked on or tormented, I wasn’t an outcast or hugely popular (seems like a pattern, maybe). I did fairly well, academically, and I didn’t hate it. I’m not saying I’d volunteer to do it again, but it wasn’t this huge “thing” that it seems to be for a lot of people.

I think part of it — maybe a big part — was going to my 10th reunion. At the time, The Wife was pregnant with The Boy, and so she wasn’t able to attend (I brought the ultrasound picture with me; yes, really). A lot of people showed up, and I had a lot of fun seeing them again. But what struck me the most was that I would not have traded my life for any of theirs. In fact, I think there was only one of them who seemed to be as happy as I was. I spent a good deal of time talking with the prettiest girl in our class — who, 10 years later, was still smokin’ hot — and she was still dating the same idiot from high school “off and on.” That was the saddest thing to me. No, what was sadder was that she was just realizing that it was going nowhere and she had spent a decade attached to this fool.

The class jock — a tall, athletic, blond guy who slept with a girl I’d liked since elementary school, at a party that I had driven her to because she didn’t have a ride — was single, and complained about not even being able to get laid, and hadn’t had a single serious relationship. He went home alone that night too.

Maybe that changed how I remember my high school experience, but I will never forget the sense of “Wow, I’ve got it pretty good: a job I like, married ~6 years to the woman I love more than anyone I’ve ever known who was expecting, living in a house that we owned in a town that we loved.” No, the job wasn’t perfect (it was, ironically enough, hellish at times) and we’d been through some really shitastic times as a couple, but at the end of the day, I was fortunate.

The ring’s the thing…

My high school no longer exists. As I mentioned, it was small back then, and had grown smaller still in the years that passed. It closed down a year or two ago. So as a Sentimental, that should make the ring even more important to me, right? Maybe as a sign to remember that things are better than I think? To remember that I’ve come a long way since then?

Nah. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was just a hunk of 20 year-old gold. So I stopped into the store this afternoon to find out what it was worth. The guy behind the counter checked the computer for the current price of gold, weighed the ring, and offered me $130 for it. Now I know there are dozens (hundreds?) of places on TV, the Internet, whatever that will offer to buy gold. This guy was standing in front of me with cash.

“Yeah, I’d take $130 for it,” I heard myself say. ‘Wait!’ I thought ‘Check yourself for signs of doubt, remorse, second thoughts!’

And then…

AND THEN…

Nope. Nothing. $130 sounded good to me. I was hoping for $150 (I thought it was 14 karat, but it was 10). He said that they’d be pricing around $90 a few months ago when he put up the sign offering $100, so my procrastination earned me $30.

Ironically, not long after I got back from the gold store today, Phillygirl posted this:

This wasn’t an engagement ring from a wedding that never happened, or a necklace from a guy who turned out to be a creep. It was a symbol of my high school years… but it turns out that I didn’t really need a symbol. $130 will come in handy, though.

Goodnight, Tumblr. Thanks for folks who have written nice things about these posts. I’m not sure I’ll post 365 of them, but it’s nice to know that the 5 people who stopped following me since I started are the exception, not the rule. (I don’t know who they are, I just saw the number change and have a good memory for numbers that I see over and over again.)

2011-01-08

I don’t need to tell you that today was a day that hurt. I haven’t felt that strong combination of anger and frustration and rage in a long time.

But let me tell you something that was good about today.

Actually, since today was such a bad day, I’m going to tell you three.

~ 1 ~

First of all I’m going to start with the least important thing, but still a good thing: there’s a new restaurant in town. Now I realize that for those of you living in big cities (ours is < 5,000) a restaurant is no big deal. Where we live, however, the addition of this restaurant brings us to a total of three places where you get a menu, rathe than ordering off the board behind the cashier and being asked if you want fries with that.

Three. Places. One of which is a Bob Evans.

This is an italian place, and the food was great, and the service was not bad for a new place. Plus, there was so much food that even I didn’t finish mine. I probably don’t have to tell you that doesn’t happen to me very often.

~ 2 ~

The Boy had his first basketball game today. I have mentioned before that he has a supreme zeal for this, not because he’s good at it, but because it’s fun.

Last night he mentioned to both of us separately that he was “a little nervous” about the game because he didn’t think he had enough practice. Fortunately, once he got out there and got on the court, all of that nervousness went away. He jumped up and down like he had won the lottery every time his team scored. He covered his opponent with his arms straight out to the side like an airplane… even when he was on offense. His team is pretty good, and they would have won if we kept score (it’s a kid’s league, and, more specifically, a kid’s church league, and so we don’t keep score. But we definitely won. Shut up. I’m not saying it matters, I’m just saying it’s true.)

But Tumblr, that wasn’t all.

His game was at 2 PM (all of his games are at 2 PM — I would like to praise the little baby Jesus lyin’ in the manger that we don’t have to get up at 8 AM for his games. Sure, he got a crappy practice time [Mondays at 8 PM] but Saturday mornings are a precious, limited commodity) but we arrived, as instructed, at 1:45 PM.

Upon arrival, we learned two things: 1) the previous games were delayed and so the game before ours was only 1/2 over. 2) The Girl who The Boy gave his phone number to was playing. Tumblr, do you know what this means? This means that each week her games will be right before his games. I hadn’t seen her before. She’s adorable. She has long blond hair which was pulled back into two ponytails, and just a little bit of roundness in her cheeks. As for her athletic ability… well, let’s just say that if she and The Boy were to get married and have kids, those kids would likely trip and fall down a lot. But she, too, was clearly enjoying herself.

(Did I tell you that I asked the other day if our phone number had changed? Our phone number, which hasn’t changed since we moved here when he was 1? He said that she sits next to him, “so that made it easy to slip her my phone number in an note.” Oh Tumblr, I wish I could have recorded his voice when he said it, he had a perfect mix of mischievous and innocence and happiness, as if he had invented the idea of passing notes in class without the teacher noticing. It was made even more funny by the fact that The Boy has all the subtlety of an airhorn. He gets that from his mother. And his father. He was pretty much doomed. Anyway, I would have paid good money to be able to see him “covertly” pass her a note. I bet anyone in the room knew what was happening.)

~ 3 ~

The Wife has to leave early tomorrow, so she went to bed early, and The Boy asked if we could watch Ice Age together. I’m not ashamed to say that I love these movies. The squirrel reminds me of Old Blind Beagle who died 2 years ago. Don’t ask me to explain how an animated squirrel can remind me of a dog; The Wife agrees, so it’s not just me. I laughed and he laughed, even though we’ve watched it so many times we could probably recite the movie to you if the TV’s sound suddenly stopped working.

Those were all my favorite parts today. Now you see why we no longer insist on picking just one. Some days have extra good things, even if they’re “just little things.”

~ 2011-01-11 ~

Here’s the story (as I remember it) of meeting Lucius for the first time.

We were at a tweetup sometime in 2010 (in Chicago, maybe? Or was it 2009? I’m an excellent rememberer, clearly. You will know that my faulty memory is no reflection on Lucious, but on me having been to a slew of tweetups in the last ~2 years).

Anyway, the discussion came around to the whole “What do you do?” thing, and Lucius said: “I developed an iPhone app with a friend of mine.”

Me: “What does it do?”

Lucius: “It’s a C25K app.”

Me: “C25K?”

Lucius: “It’s a program designed to get people from the couch to running a 5k. ‘C’ to five K”

I think at this point I involuntarily spit my drink on him.

Me: “Get the fuck out of here… Really? You’re kidding, right?” It sounded about as plausible as panning for gold in the urinal trough in the men’s room.

Lucius: “No really, it starts them off walking with short intervals of running and then gradually increases over several weeks. Anybody can do it.”

Me: “Well, good luck with that.”

(Conversation paraphrased from memory. It’s a safe bet that in reality Lucius sounded even smarter and I sounded like even more of a dumbass.)

~ “This is a thing? A thing that people do?” ~

Maybe because of how odd I found the idea, I remembered “c 2 5 k” (I think I was planning on making a joke on Twitter about it being C3PO’s older, more athletic, brother… I may have made that joke, but of course who would know because Twitter search HAHAHASOB).

I googled it later and found out that Lucius was not, in fact, yanking my chain. The idea had been around for awhile, but they had indeed made an iPhone app that helps by telling you when to walk and when to run. There were “success stories” of “people” who had “gotten off their fat asses” and “actually stopped overusing quotation marks and started running.”

“Huh,” I said. “Interesting. But I couldn’t do that. I’m too far out of shape. I get blisters every damn time I try to use the damn treadmill [which is true], and I hear running is bad on your knees and stuff.”

Whatever, you get the idea. 1% truth mixed in with 99% “I really don’t wanna.” I’ve said for years that the only good reasons to run are: a) someone is chasing you with an ax, or b) there is an ice cream truck up ahead.

~ Sick & Tired of Being Sick & Tired ~

Resolutions are like goldfish; if you never kept one alive for a week? Either care more or try other things. Just quit acting so surprised.

Merlin said that on the twitter and then expounded further on 43Folders. Say what you will about Merlin, I think he’s right more than he’s wrong, and he has a way of putting stuff into words that make sense to me. And that? That nailed it.

In that article he mentions a podcast episode he did 5 years ago. Here’s a telling little graphic from when I just searched my hard drive to see if I had that episode downloaded already:

Well there you go. I’ve downloaded this episode at least 5 times since 2006. The desire to make changes is easier to have than actually making the changes.

“Resolutions” talk always reminds me of an old line that my Dad used to quote: “Quitting smoking is easy, I’ve done it hundreds of times.” The first time I made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight was 1997. A few years ago, I actually did it. I lost about 60 pounds via Atkins The thing was, I did no exercise, and I did no real life changes. I ate a lot of meat products and nothing else. I didn’t feel particularly healthy, but the weight came off.

But you know what happened next. It got boring. It got repetitive. I missed too many different foods. Hell, at one point I said to The Wife: “I miss crunch when I bite into something.” And so I started, little by little, to “cheat.” It was already starting to get pretty bad. And then my Dad died.

Well, what had been a trickle turned into a stream, and the stream became a firehose, and almost before I realized it, I had put back on all of the weight, plus a little more.

And then a little more.

And a little more.

It was never really about the numbers for me, but numbers are a helpful way for people to understand changes. I started off around 250 lbs. I got down to around 190 lbs. I’d guess that I’m closer to 275 lbs now, but I really don’t know. When I’ve been to the doctors they measure me in metric and I never look at the numbers and they never tell me what it is.

It’s been pretty steady for the past year or so, I haven’t really gained any more, but I haven’t really been happy with it either, not because of the number, but because I know it’s having ripple effects on my health, my sleeping, my fatigue, my back, everything.

I don’t care about getting back to 190 — well, I care, but sort of like “I would be nice” in the same sort of way I think about visiting Australia. I don’t expect to see either anytime soon.

I do care about feeling better. I would like to look better. I’d like to be more comfortable in whatever situation I find myself.

I’m hoping maybe it will help me live a little longer, but even if I’m hit by a bus, maybe I will have been able to enjoy life a little more with more energy to spend with The Boy.

~ “Better” ~

I said earlier that my theme for 2011 is “better.” So I’m not setting a numerical goal for my weight. I’m setting a relatively short-term goal of finishing the C25K. It’s just over 10 weeks until my birthday and about 12 to CHSH so I’m hoping that I will have finished it by then. (It’s supposed to take 9 weeks, but I’m heeding the advice to ease into it gradually to avoid injury.)

I don’t think I’ll ever be a “runner” but I’m hoping maybe it will get me in the habit so I’ll start using the elliptical, treadmill, and execise bike that we have in our own house.

So my second favorite part today was that we got an iPod touch, which The Boy can use instead of the old iPhone he was using and an iPod which suddenly died, and which I can use with the C25K app and the Nike+ app, but my first favorite part is that I actually moved the couch, a sweatshirt, a comforter, no—wait, two comforters, and moved the (similarly unused) exercise bike and did 31m34s on the treadmill and finished Day 1 of the C25K.

~ I blame you and you and you ~

I know several of you are runners, including Marleymarley, AshamedToSay {BTW I grabbed your “running playlists” a few months ago and tucked them away until tonight when I loaded them on the iPod}, and Jason “Cranberry” Person (Where the F is your Tumblr, Jason?). AshamedToSay’s running posts are some of my favorite things, I love seeing what she sees and that she can actually see them. Running a marathon still sounds like humping a box of razor blades, but I’m incredibly impressed that you did it in the rain of all things. I’m not sure I’d walk 26 miles in the rain. No, no I’m sure I wouldn’t, even if I could.

But y’all have been runners for as long as I’ve known you.

The real blame to be had here is Monkeyfrog and AngryOldCoot.

Monkeyfrog (or “MF” as I like to call her) is completely fucking inspiring, and if you don’t get that you’re either dead, blind, or dumb. You know the old saying about “There’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity?” Yeah, well her response to that is “Fuck you and your stupid pathetic sayings. Don’t tell me what I can’t do, I will end you.” I believe I told her at one point that a) she was my spirit animal and b) when my feet healed up (which I won’t go into just in case Steel happens to be one of the 3 people who is still reading this) I was going to follow her example. Well, my final foot-doctor appointment was October, so it took me awhile, but I didn’t forget.

Coot… well, shit, I’m not sure what it was, Coot, but when you started running too I was like “Dammit, really? Another one? sigh” I’m blaming you anyway. Turns out I don’t always need a reason.

(And you people doing that “Shred” thing? You’re inspiring me too, but sort of like those people I see at the circus who jump through spinning rings of knives. I’m impressed, but not in such a way that I actually want to try it.)

~ Does this story have an ending? ~

BTW this?

Shit just real. Metaphorically speaking. — me

was posted when I placed the iPod touch order and committing (at least in my mind) to doing this.

~ 2011-01-12 ~

This was my favorite part today.

It was snowing so much today that they cancelled school for tomorrow around 3:00 p.m. but she was still able to make it home because fortunately it wasn’t snowing as hard between here and school.

I embraced today as a “snow day.” I didn’t go into my office, and I didn’t work from home. I watched some TV, did some reading, and played a few games.

After The Wife came home we watched some NCIS from Netflix.

Aside: No, I didn’t work out today because the C25K thing site suggests that you a) workout 3x/week and b) tell you to ease into it and *not to push yourself when you are starting out, which is when you are more likely to get injured. The idea is to leave yourself thinking “I could do more!” rather than “I’m exhausted and it hurts and I hate this and never want to do it again.”*

~ 2011-01-13 ~

Stupid frakkin’ treadmill zeros out all of the numbers when you hit stop, so I wasn’t able to get a picture of it. There goes my idea to take a picture of it after every time I use it. Oh well. Shit happens.

Here’s my mini-review of the C25K app: it’s genius. It lets me select a playlist for music, and can run in the background (unlike the Nike+ app which seems to require to be in the foreground). Then I can use Tumblr Gear to catch up on Tumblr during the non-run times. Cues to “Run Now” and “Walk Now” (not to mention “Halfway Done!”) couldn’t be simpler.

It’s no secret that execising to music is a huge help. One of the problems I’ve always had is coming up with a good exercise playlist. Well, awhile back I grabbed the .zip files that AshamedToSay posted when someone asked for good running songs. The other day when I was getting ready I threw them all into iTunes, made them into a playlist, sync’d it to the iPod touch, and boom done. That saved me from waiting until I made my own playlist which would have probably delayed the process another two months as I searched through my mess of a music library. I see there are various podcasts for running music, but I assume they have to use free music, which is to say I assume they suck.

~ “Remember when you used to use this to tell us about your favorite part of the day?” ~

Right. Sorry.

My favorite part of the day is shown in the screenshot above. For thos who don’t remember, that’s George Michael in the jetpack flying into Tobias who is dressed as a mole attacking the fake city that Gob setup to fool the Chinese investors.

Ok, so we’re a little behind since Mr F originally aired 5 years, 2 months, and 6 days ago but we’re really enjoying Arrested Development. We’re about half-way through the 3rd season. I can’t wait to see what happens in Season 4…

Wait, what? You’re kidding. But it’s hilarious! It’s got a great cast, the writing is fantastic and — Ohhhhh. It was on Fox. How did Arrested Development get cancelled after 3 seasons and that horribly unfunny “Glenn Beck” show is still on? That has the least plausible scripts of any show I’ve ever — What? You’re kidding. “News”? I thought it was some kind of performance piece, you know, like “inside the mind of a delusional sociopath nitwit…”