The Things We Do

Utterly fed up. So nehh...

Feeling fairly lost, as though I don't know myself any more. This is mostly weight-related, I'm sure. Haven't weighed since last Monday, when I'd lost 3.5 pounds (down to 18st 9), but have been away at a conference for most of the last week, and am off to another one tomorrow (sigh). Haven't exactly been bad while away, but neither have I been particularly virtuous.

Have a feeling I need to re-establish some things about the kind of person I am, for my own sake. I'm now, presumably, somewhere between 18st 7 and 19st. That means there's at most, five stone between where I am right now - miserable, uncomfortable, vaguely paranoid that people think certain things about me because of the way I look - and the way I was when I was at my happiest.
When I was at my happiest - with clothes fitting and looking at least reasonable, joints not hurting, money going in the right direction etc, there were certain things I did, and certain things I didn't do. This restatement I think will help me reshape my own idea of who I am, and get me back to the version of myself I want to be.

I do get up early. I do not make excuses and roll over.
I do walk. I do not walk short distances, think "fuck it" and go home again.
I do not drink. Not puritanically, but simply practically and financially.
I do not eat or drink: sugar, cream, fried food, carbonated drinks.
I do eat a small, standard breakfast, not a large one.
I do eat fruit and vegetables for snacks throughout the day, rather than not eating and them "making up for it" at big mealtimes.
I do understand my disease (diabetes). I do not try to bargain or borrow "special circumstances" from it as though it is a sentient thing.
I do embrace the opportunity for additional exercise in each day. I do not shrink from it as though the avoidance of pain or inconvenience is a valid reason for anything.
I do go to the gym, regularly. I do not praise myself for not going and getting " a lot of work done" with the time I've saved.

That feels a little better, I have to say.
d's going out in a couple of hours, for a couple of hours. Am going to strap my walking boots on, as we actually have a window where it isn't absolutely pissing down, and at least feel like I know a little about myself again.

Three Spectacular Failures And A Third Of A Success

OK, so...wow, that didn't work.

Updates:
Failed the Starbucks challenge spectacularly. Ultimately, you know what got me? Bordeom on Paddington Station. That's it, yes, I'm blaming Paddington Station. If Paddington Station had somewhere to unselfconsciously wait in the warm for a couple of hours, with tables, and non-Starbucks coffee, dammit...oh wait, hold on - it's actually littered with places like that. Damn. See, when you think things through at 3.47 in the morning...

Anyway, the truth is, I cracked on Paddington Station on what I call an UberCommute - the run up and down to London in the space of a day - and drank what was actually utterly vile - an orange hot chocolate, of all things.
Since then, we've been away to Greece and I'm more than vaguely ashamed to say that one of the highlights of that trip was finding Starbucks Heraklion. So the Starbucks challenge is dead, failed. And there it is.

The whole "Lose Three Stone" thing has also been, if not categorically failed until October, then at least radically inconvenienced by having in fact put ON at least two stone since the challenge began. I'm now around 18st 11, which feels unremittingly fucking horrible, and is probably not a little to do with why I write this at 3.51 in the morning. I don't like looking like this, I don't like feeling like this. I may have to re-start my previous blog, The Disappearing Man. At least, when I was doing that, I felt obliged to tell people the truth, and therefore didn't feel like I could get away with nonsense.
I am now going to begin this part of the challenge again. And I'm going to break it down into manageable chunks or stone-miles, as it were. Challenge 1: See a 17 on my scales. Discipline and defeating the urge to wantonly self-sabotage is all this takes. Self-sabotage is something of a raison d'etre of mine, but the Disappearing Man was predicated on the idea that it didn't have to be. It's funny really - when I set up my editing business, I was perfectly willing to be taken seriously, and I take it seriously. Why I feel this compunction to be taken seriously in absolutely nothing else - from my writing to my weight - I don't know, but it's sick and self-defeating and it needs to bloody well stop if I'm to have anywhere near the life I actually want and am capable of. To arms! And what's more, to bloody exercise bike!

The rejoining of my male voice choir hasn't happened yet either, and I rather thought it might have. To be honest, I'm a bit torn about it. Love the singing and the discipline of singing correctly. And love the idea of the camaraderie of blokes and all that. The actual camaraderie of blokes...meh...I think I've probably missed the boat on knowing how to do that. I've never had a large number of male friends, and I don't actually give a toss about a large number of "male" interests, so the male bonding thing only tends to happen by accident. And don't get me wrong here - have certainly bonded with a number of fellow choristers, including at least one who, when I first met them, I thought I'd never get on with. It's whether or not I have the time and the inclination to go back to it right now that's the question, and to be honest, I'm as busy and as pressured now as I was when I left. Perhaps it's actually little wonder that the majority of such choirs have a largely retired membership. Plus, I'll be honest, being or feeling like the only atheist in the choir is a bit naff.
The choir was there for me in what was probably the most difficult year of my life to date, and I'll always be grateful for that. But can I commit to it in the way it needs committing to right now? Hmm...

What else has happened recently? Well, I've had my first manicure - I realise of course that wasn't on the list, and probably does little to establish my commitment to male bonding, but it was an interesting experience. I'm not looking to have it done again (says he, sitting here with pigging talons clacking on the keyboard), but should the opportunity present itself again, I might well go for it. Oh I've also experienced chiropractic since I last wrote, probably. Quite a lot, as it happens - not least because when I lay on my front on the chiropracter's couch, I popped a rib out of position. Soooo that was fun. Fortunately he was able to...well, essentially, hammer it back into submission for me, not once, but twice. Enjoyable stuff, and to be honest, if I had more money coming in on a regular basis, might well keep that up.

Have just this minute made enquiries about learning to swim and ride a bike in the local area. And of course, have been away to a country I've never visited before. Crete was breathtakingly beautiful, heartbreakingly historied, economically impoverished, generously peopled, and not a little scary inasmuch as the language barrier was total. Am I now likely to achieve the goal of visiting three new countries this year? Notsomuch, but maybe one a year from now till I die will be at least a good start, no?

Oh, have written a few poems towards the goal of self-publishing a volume of those, too, and re-done my first chapter of a novel. Not quite done tinkering with it yet, but nearly - who knows what might happen by dawn?!

The social media blackout continues successfully - in fact, too successfully, as I'm sort of avoiding the sites even for legitimate purposes, like my business and my day job. That has to end this week though, as my day job has become interested in the tantrumming, "take me seriously" three year old of social media sites - LinkedIn, and I'm going to have to get involved. (shudders). Silly bloody site, if you ask me, but nobody can deny it takes itself ever so seriously. Sigh.

Anyway, that's where you find me. Blubber-covered and remorseful, basically. Let's see where we go from here...

The Starbucks Bathroom Quandry

Hello again. Been a while.
Weightloss - hmm - up a quarter-pound this week, but down six over the last couple of weeks, so very much swings and wossnames.
Floyd - Unff...still stuck like a lichen on The Wall.
Poetry - developing ideas and poems.

Done a couple of things since I last wrote which could have been on the list, but weren't. Written my first comedy song - Counting Down To Capaldimas. Not actually that funny, if I'm honest, but did put it together between London Paddington and Reading railway stations, so happy enough with it.

Also been introduced to the sharp end of the world of acupuncture. And (waves hand in a vague manner) chiropractic.

d was keen to explore, and found herself a chiropractor, and quickly, as we chuckled between ourselves (the nights fair drawing in and so on), became something of a crack-whore. And last Saturday, I went with her, and cracked up myself. The acupuncture bit was barely noticeable, if I'm honest, but have now had two chiropractic sessions. Have to say at this point the guy who I've seen is very scientific about the whole thing - all talk of spinal this and muscular that and neurons and the like, none of your auras and chakras and suchlike codswallop and flim-flam. In fact, we had quite a long chat about it before he ever laid hands on my spine.
Will say, in the immediate aftermath, one feels remarkably invigorated - though truth be told, I'm not sure how much of that is genuine medical benefit and how much is mental gratitude that one's spine is no longer being manipulated against its will. Am due to go back there Saturday coming, but in all honesty, not sure I'll go - the one thing about it all that makes me a little disturbed is that he determines when he'll see me next, and three sessions in a week is not bloomin' cheap. Not sure the momentary relief of having my neck wrung is worth money I'm not really sure I have to spare (Christmas, and all that...). So we'll see.

This morning though I face a dilemma. Came down to Cardiff to my Starbucks substitute to work, only to discover, two de-caff lattes in, that their bathroom is up the spout for the day. So now, what to do? Wander the streets, pee somewhere else and come back? Go home, to be serenaded by the delightful chorus of next-door's bathroom being refitted?
Or...

My Starbucks is just there - about 25 paces away. With coffee and wifi and toilets, oh my.

Unff...while of course there's a reasonable logic behind the Starbucks veto, it's not exactly changing my habits (says he, from a local coffee shop) - only, really, where my money goes. And it's right there...

Arrrrgh...

The Treetop Trip and the Cheerleading Conundrum

Met my pal Sue in line for the 50th Anniversary episode of Doctor Who at the movies.
"Not much happening in way of the blog," she mentioned. I agreed. There's been some progress of sorts, but I haven't had time to fill you in.

Right, let's see - in terms of the "travel to three countries I've never been before" objective - I've booked us a holiday in Greece in January - sort of celebrating d's birthday, though it won't be on the exact dates of that occasion. Flights booked, accommodation sorted, all good to go and groovy. Oh, insurance. Must sort out travel insurance...

So whatever one third of a tick is, consider it made on that one. A ti-?

Likewise on the "sleep in a treehouse" thing - booked a place at a treehouse near Bath, which happens in August.

The losing four stone malarkey continues to go in the wrong direction, and must obviously be addressed, as it's the gateway to a handful of other things that are on the list.

I did try to run a mile without dying a couple of weeks ago. Failed. Ran 600 metres before my heart was all kindsa "Are you kidding me with this shit?!"

Hmm...work to do. Back to the gym tomorrow.

Finally, thank the deeply unlikely gods, got past album four in the Floyd challenge. An odd thing happened then - albums five and six imported a big box of "tunes" from somewhere, so I sawed through those reasonably quickly and with minimal bloodloss from the ear. Just need to finish album seven and then I'm on to the allegedly seminal "Dark Side of the Moon".

Update:
Gone past Dark Side while not writing this blog. Now on Floyd album #8, Wish You Were Here.

Been talking to Sian by text this afternoon. She was going to do some demented marathon as one of her Beeblebrox tasks, but it turns out it's full for next year, so she's hit on an alternative.

Cheerleading.

"Erm...you do know you're not allowed to do sarcastic cheers...right?" I asked, tentatively.
"Oh bugger," she said. "Really?"
"Really," I assured her.
"Well, so much for that then..." she said.

The thing is, medical science has yet to find a bone in Sian's body that doesn't ooze sarcasm if you break it (and believe me, she's been testing the theory extensively, breaking many bones in pursuit of the idea of doing things because they're there. I maintain of course that because they're there is actually a reason to avoid the bejeesus out of some things...)

But the thing about this Beeblebrox challenge is that is hsould make us do some things we don't think we're capable of, or others don't think we're capable of, as well as all the stuff were foing cos we simply haven't got round to them yet.

So I reckon she should give it a go. Cheerleading kit, pom-poms, bunches, the whole deal. And enthusiastic cheers.

This is gonna be fuuuuuuun!

The Bungee Avoidance Principle

For anyone reading my Beeblebrox List, expecting what Zaphod would undoubtedly describe as "excitement and adventure and Really Wild Things", it is probably somewhat noticeable that one thing utterly missing from the list is any kind of bungee jump.

Given that parasailing and effectively falling out of a plane are both on the list, it's probably self-evident that hurtling towards the potential doom and the certain hardness of the Earth is not the issue that prevents me from putting something like that on the list. It's more to do with the bounce. The rapid return to height, and having to do the fall practically a second time. It's going the wrong way, essentially, on which I'm not particularly keen.

Which is why today's news is all the more galling. Given that when I started on this Beeblebrox Year, I weighed in at 17st 10.25 and the goal of losing 3 stone (or 42 pounds - the delicious symmetry of which I've just realised this instant!) over 52 weeks, it's galling to report that as of today, with just 49 weeks to go, I weigh in at 18st 2.75! I'm going in the wrong direction!

That means I'm almost legitimised in saying I should lose 4 stone (56 pounds) in the space of the remaining 49 weeks. That'd take me down to 14 stone 2.75. Ah hell, let's be devils, and say I want to lose 4 stone 3 pounds, to take me down to 13 stone 13 lbs.

Damn, that sounds like a good achievement. Oooh...I've got to tell you, I've been particularly unmotivated on the weightloss goal for a while now - having reached a low of 14st 9. But the idea of going beyond that, of getting to see a 13...oooh, now that makes my fingers itch. That would be a thing to actually say. Right, sod it, let's do that. That's a tweak to the original goal. That still works out to be a weightloss of just 1.2 pounds per week. How hard can that be?? (Cynics and realists, chuckle darkly now...). But the thing is, with the bit between my teeth in any sort of proper manner...well...just stick around and watch what I can do...

I've also decided what two more slots on my List should be. I'm going to add "Learn to ride a real bike" and "Learn to swim, properly" to the equation.

I can swim now - have been able to for decades. But it's not a pretty thing. It's not so much an otter-like slipping through the water, more a kind of "not dying, but flailing" thing that leaves me gasping, red-faced, palpitational and about a few yards down the length of the pool. There's got to be someone who'll teach me how to actually do the thing properly.

As for bike-riding...ahem...I have the sort of sense of balance that can see me falling over just standing up. I've always had that sort of sense of balance - but now I think about it, since I went practically deaf in the right ear on February 12th this year, I've also suffered what's known as "a profound insult to the organ of balance". So, thinking about it, there's probably never been a worse time to try and learn to ride a bike than now. On the other hand, if I manage it now, just imagine how smug I'll feel...

The first and really only time I've tried to learn to ride a bike before now though, I was the victim not of my sense of balance though, but my own stupidity. My mother had bought me a bike, paying a friend of hers over the odds for what was a proper grown-up bike. It was, truth be told, far too big for me, and we lived in a first floor maisonette (oddly enough, as I do now). I decided that the thing that scared me about bike riding was...well...largely the "falling off". So, once I'd mastered the "not falling off" bit, everything should be fine. So I practiced not falling off. At home. Trying to achieve perfect balance on a stationary bike, under the stairs.

People, in fairness, did try to tell me about physics, and how much easier it was not to fall off if the bike was actually moving, but that seemed like errant foolishness to me, so I persevered with my not-falling-off practice. And kept falling off.

Eventually, when it became clear that I was never going to get the hang of it, the bike quietly disappeared from my life and I resolved to become a pedestrian, which I've remained to this day.

Now of course, maybe it's not possible. Maybe the insult to the organ of balance will actually stop me mastering the art of bike riding in my forties, as the insult to the organ of reason did in my teens. But I'm going to give it a go.

What else has happened since I wrote last? Oh, had a great email from my brother - discussion with whom spawned the so-far-most-loathsome of my challenges: the Pink Floyd marathon. He emailed me to say he'd been reading the blog (all views and shares gratefully received!), and felt an intervention was necessary. He admitted, in whispery email tones, that he'd never been much of a fan of Floyd's early stuff, and that I should probably jump in much later in the collected work.

Bless.

Much appreciated, this concession - as indeed was d's practical plea last Saturday: "You really have nothing to prove with this non-Starbucks year, you know!" But the thing is, I'm not actually doing any of these things for anyone else. I'm doing them for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is to test out my stubborn-buggerness. If I've said I'll do a thing, how far am I prepared to go to keep my word? And what does that say about me? I'm not going to Starbucks, or any other chain coffee store, but a perfect example of how arbitrary the actual tasks on this list are came last Saturday. My mother had suggested a local Cardiff coffee shop where they probably wouldn't throw me out for wanting to sit there all day with a laptop. It's about...maybe 8 or 9 doors up from my favourite Starbucks. Has power. Had wifi. So, as my brother described it early on in this challenge, it's not really about the principle of the thing, it's about a change of venue. Except that on some madly meta level, it is about the principle of the thing....just probably not the principle people think it is. It's about the fact that I've said I'm going to do a thing. So I'm doing it.

That said, something struck me today, as indeed it struck me last Tuesday, just before I did my first "reading to children" session. Some of these challenges involve doing things I actively don't want to do. The Floydathon's the most trivial example of that. The reading to children scared the bejeesus out of me, though it turned out to be staggeringly rewarding. Oddly enough of course it no longer scares me (you watch them all be complete and utter bastards tomorrow morning!). I saw a poster today asking for volunteers to befriend people with physical or mental difficulties, and my stomach lurched. There's an action on my list that says "Volunteer to do something for charity, in a way that takes me out of my comfort zone".

Terrific...

The point about which of course is I'm rarely out of my comfort zone. I think that's what comfort zones are built for. To be comfortable in. Why people go on about going beyond those zones is a genuine mystery to me. But the way I've phrased the challenge means my initial instinct, which is to say "I'm sure I can help charities in better ways through application of my skills..." is not valid. I can do that too of course (given the time). But the idea of doing something that ACTIVELY puts me outside my comfort zone is pretty bloody scary.

Anyhow - as it crawls towards 2AM, it's time to get some sleep. Kids in the morning.

Read My Lips

So there we go. Number 8 - Read To Children was accomplished this morning when - along with a couple of other...well, oddballs, frankly...I walked into my own primary school, as a volunteer reader.

What this turned out to involve was not so much "Now listen and hark and attend to me, O My Best Beloved..." to a bunch of rapt-eyed ragamuffins, as around a campfire - not in fact, so much "reading to children" as "getting a procession of children, in a room, ro read to me, with occasional correction and explanation."

Bizarrely, given the pre-established facts that 1) I don't particularly like kids, and 2) they have an innate ability to make me freakin' nervous by their general unpredictability, I really enjoyed that. Hearing kids read - mainly 10 year olds today - at their difffering levels of ability, and offering an occasional steer, an occasional explanation (things like "detective" and in one particularly poignant, chair-shifting bit of mime, the word "perched") was staggeringly rewarding. In the words of comedian Mark Thomas, "I wanted to take them home...but...there's laws..."

So that'll become a regular bit of what Wednesdays are all about now, at least for a while.

Updates on a couple of other fronts - weighed in yesterday at 17st 11.75 - so, up two pounds from the week before, and a pound and a half from where I started! Humph...

Have just made enquiries by email about a local-ish dance class that I fancy taking, though as it happens I'm enquiring halfway through a term, so that might not happen till the new year. Unfortunately, classes are on a Wednesday night, which will class somewhat with any moves to rejoin the Dowlais Male Choir (who rehearse on Sunday and Wednesday nights). Good thing I have a year to get all this accomplished, really!

Yesterday was also a bit of a slap in the face in terms of the "support local coffee shops, rather than chains" objective too. Having sat in a local coffee shop most of Saturday and worked on the laptop, I went to do the same again, having plenty of work to get on with.
I was halfway through my first latte, when a member of staff came up to me.
"I've been asked to tell you you can't stay here," she said.
"What?" I asked, somewhat frothily.
"With the laptop. Can't stay here all day with the laptop. People need the table," she explained.
I looked around - the place was half empty. It wasn't like I was freeloading - I tend to spend around £20 a day on coffee, if not more, during these days of working.
"Then people can have the table," I said, packing up, downing a latte with all the dignity I could muster (ever tried downing a hot frothy latte in one? Not advisable if you want to stand on your dignity and stalk out, let me tell you. Learn from me).

So that's that option knackered. There are still a couple of local coffee shops to try - one has free wifi and couches and an apparent invitation to stay all day, but unfortunately, they have absolutely lousy coffee. The other has good coffee, but I have yet to test their patience with people who want to stay and work and drink a lot of coffee, being all impertinently...present, and so on. Might give them a try later this week or early next. The point, I think, being that in my imaginary hair-flicking piety and good causiness, it didn't ever occur to me that maybe local coffee shops wouldn't want to be supported by an allegedly recovering Starbucks addict. Humph...

Oh and the Floydathon continues. Album 3 done, so I'm a tenth of the way to the finish line on that one. Of course, just when you think you might be making progress, they slap a double live album in your way. Floyd #4 is called Ummagumma, and is basically all the longest and most tedious bits of the first three albums, played live, along with a couple of new tracks, each of which have at least three parts to them. Shoot me. Shoot me now...

The Blood Donor

Well now...
Today was going to be the day I made my first attempt at #19, run a mile without dying. Ma and I got to the gym, sauntered to the reception desk.
"Sorry, we're closed," said the young woman behind the desk.
"What?" we said in unison.
"Burst pipe," she said. "Sorry..."

So - bugger. Am going to go back tomorrow on my own, and if the pipes are less burst, have a go at that one.

Underlined the achievement of a return to blood donation today, by...erm...actually going to get the blood sucked out of me. Job done.
Moving closer to the reading to children thing too - Meeting at a local school, in fact the primary school I attended back in the middle ages, on Wednesday morning to see how it's done, and then presumably to do it.

Currently listening to my third Floyd album. Moving ever closer to my original assertion that life's too short to listen to Pink Floyd.

And have realised that somewhere along the line, Sian's stolen a march on me, by filling in the last of her challenges - she now has her full 42, whereas I'm still only on 33. Will have to give this some serious thought soon.

Along with making arrangements to get some of my items crossed off - dance classes, golfing, treehouse, all that sort of malarkey.

Going to be moderately unhappy tomorrow morning, I predict - in my quest to lose 3 stone from my starting weight of 17st 10.25, I have a distinct feeling tomorrow I may record a weight that's radically in the wrong direction. May see 18 stone tomorrow. Unff...must get a grip.