The Real Fear

"If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we are not really living.

Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean a giving up of familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, relationships that have lost their meaning. 

As Dostoevsky put it, "Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most." The real fear should be of the opposite course."

Gail Sheehy, journalist and author, as quoted from James Clear's weekly email.

Taking The Plunge

I weighed myself yesterday.

Came in at 194 pounds. 194 pounds on December 4 in the Year of Our Lord 2021. Just to mark it officially.

I can hear you now. "You fat little fuck. 194 pounds? At 5'7"? Are you fucking kidding me? How do you even move? Have another donut, you fat pig."

Sensitive words richly deserved.

However, as you well know, I am nothing if not an optimist. When I lost 10 pounds many months ago, it got me down to 185. I have not weighed myself for the last few months because I could feel myself getting fatter. I did not want to know. But it felt like I gained back 12 or 15 pounds. I felt like a bowling ball on legs. Still do.

But it turns out I "only" gained 9 pounds back. Oddly enough that is reason for optimism. Weight loss does not seem as daunting to me as it would have had I bulked up like Blimpo Man.

So there you have it. I have laid it all out on the line. December 31, 2021 will be the day of reckoning.

I am gonna give it hell and hope for the best.

A Strange Quest

Sometimes I go looking for things to worry about.

Does that seem silly to you?

A Physical & Mental Inventory

I'll try to be honest.

Physically I feel like shit. Have for quite a while now.

The weight I'm carrying on my 5'7" frame is roughly akin to Atlas carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Problems with my knees and my right hip. A general sloth-like feeling. Which is accentuated by lack of sleep. I sleep like shit every night and wake up tired.

I am considering a reckless move today - publishing my current weight. So I can compare it to my weight on 12/31. I cannot lose much weight in one month but I can lose some weight. Of course it could go the other way too; I might weigh 425 pounds today and 435 pounds on 12/31.

I don't know. That's a lot of pressure. We'll see.

At least the weight gain is something I have some control over. I can do something about it. Although Dr. Feelgood's words ring in my ears from a year ago. He told me that the weight I gain during hormone therapy is very hard to lose. I don't know why. I hope he's wrong.

Anyway.......... many other body parts hurt but are not worth mentioning because they are age related.

My brain is a 50/50 split. Anxiety and self-loathing have a firm hold on my thoughts, roots that have dug deep, but I have been going at them with a scythe and hoe for most of 2021. Progress is being made.

Over the last two days, the guys working in the basement have done tremendous work - it looks like a completely different place. They ripped out moldy sheetrock, ripped out shitty carpet, got rid of a lot of trash and dirt and detritus.

We look at their accomplishment and feel hope. HOPE. Hope that we can actually transfer the burden of this house onto the back of some poor, unsuspecting rube.

Hope continues in the area of my life that causes me excessive pain. In fact I received great news last night. I can't share it with you because spies are everywhere and they do not wish me well. Truth will be revealed when the time is right. Still, HOPE.

So I gotta go to work. Gottta rough up my body to reclaim it. Gotta keep on hacking away at my brain until Real Joe is set loose upon the world.

I can do this.

I feel it in my bones.

Two Cats

I said repeatedly over the years that for me personally, I scaled the mountain of pet love to perfection with Maka and Lakota.

It started with Sundance, the neighborhood cat that used to greet my drunken ass at 3 am when I was a teenager living at home with the parents. He came out of the woodwork and we would sit together as I patted and loved him. I don't know where he lived or what his name was; I named him Sundance.

We had a cat in our first apartment; pets in our first home.

We moved here in 1986 and began a progression of pet love in this home that continues until this very day.

Maka and Lakota were the stars of the show for the last 18 years. The sweetest, most loving and gentle cats on planet earth. I had both of them in my lap almost every night; one of them in my lap every morning as I read.

Lakota died on January 31, 2020; Maka on September 11, 2021.

September 13, 2021 began a new era.

Emmy Lou and Patsy.

I did not think it possible for my love of a pet to transcend the power of the love I felt for Maka and Lakota. I was wrong. Which is a great lesson - to realize that there are no limits to happiness.

These two cats have stolen my heart and Carol's heart in an overwhelming way. They have been living here for 2 and 1/2 months and they own this house and they own us.

They are young and insane and fun; they are sisters who love each other and play and sleep together.

They are sweet and inquisitive and loving.

I just had to stop typing here for 5 minutes while Patsy laid down in my lap. She doesn't do that when I read, but when I sit in front of my laptop she is right up in my lap, and it is so precious to me.

They have their habits, we have ours. They sleep with us every night. Emmy Lou is a bit impatient in the morning; she climbs all over us. She touches her nose to my nose, which, of course, I love. Then we stare into each others eyes. Amazing shit.

This is love expressed and felt exponentially. The love they have for each other is obvious and tender and precious; they love us openly, we love them openly. All that love builds upon itself and reaches a level of intensity I would never have believed possible.

If you are not a pet lover you think I am a sap. I don't care. If you are not a pet lover I don't trust you and your opinion means nothing to me.

Human beings need love in its purest form in order to survive this nasty life. Human love is great but flawed. Pet love is the pinnacle of emotion.

Emmy Lou and Patsy fill our hearts and souls with love. 

There is no better state of being.

Holy Shit, Hoochie Mama

Today is December 2, 2021.

You undertsand what that means. Right?

In 30 days it will be January 1, 2022.

This time of year freaks me out. The entire month of December quietly prods me: "You didn't do anything. You accomplished nothing. You didn't even try. You are wasting your life, motherfucker. You will be 68 in 30 days. Sixty fucking eight. How much time do you think you have left?"

I feel odd this year. Not apocalyptic. Some things in my life are moving in the right direction. Got some people here working on the house today, cleaning up mold and other evil things in our basement. They'll probably find a couple of corpses. If they do I'm throwing them on the grill. Special supper. 

Big project. Two days. A big step towards the goal of foisting this house on some unsuspecting rube.

In addition, it is highly likely that change will occur in the area of my life that causes me the most pain. There are rumblings in that direction and I feel quite hopeful.

These are two hugely important areas of my/our life that must change, and that is exactly what is happening. That's heady stuff.

I gotta get moving on this weight gain bullshit. It can't be ignored. When your body does not feel like your own, when you feel uncomfortable and gross, you are always aware. You cannot pretend that all is well. And that will fuck with my head. I can't have that.

Losing a couple of pounds this month will go a long way to restoring confidence.

I don't know how to handle this. Typically I trip into the new year filled with foreboding. This time around there is some positiveness mixed in.

It's not a bad feeling.

2022 can be a year of big change for Carol and me.

As I have said a million times in here, my mother used to tell me I'm a late bloomer. I hated her for that; it did not sound like a vote of confidence to me. But, as I have said before, she might have been right.

Tough for me to say - I hate admitting that my parents were right about anything.

Blooming at the age of 68? Seems ludicrous. Most people at that point in their life are slowly dying - not living - whether they admit it or not. A sensation that I am quite familiar with.

The slowly dying thing reminds me of a Townes Van Zandt lyric that I love from a song titled Waitin' Around To Die.

"Sometimes I don't know where this dirty road is taking me, sometimes I can't even see the reason why, I guess I keep a-gamblin', lots of booze and lots of ramblin', it's easier than just waitin' around to die."

Great philosophy. I got the boozin' down but I sure as shit ain't gamblin' or ramblin'. Maybe that will change in 2022.

Back to this late-bloomer shit. Why not at 68? I mean I gotta do something sometime. Or die a fucking pantywaist.

Imagine if I stepped right in to myself at this point in my life. Just aired out my true personality, talents, quirks and interests for all to see? In bare, naked honesty?

It would be such a joy for me to see the looks on peoples' faces. They would not have a fucking clue who I am. 

Imagine if I sought out people of similar interests and actually hung around with them? I suffocate every day because I can't talk to people about the The Blues, The Allman Brothers, music in general, song lyrics, poetry, literature.

Know who I talk to about all that now? NOBODY! That's why I am so fucking bored. Every conversation I have every day puts me to sleep. So much so that I conduct most conversations on auto-pilot, making meaningless comments at all the right places and in all the right tones so that people actually think I am listening to them.

The rare and random times when I  actually stumbled into a conversation with someone who shares my enthusiasms blew me away. Blew me away at how happy I was, how natural I was, how me I was.

Those brief moments felt so fucking good. If I surround myself with the right people I could feel that good almost all the time. I wouldn't know how to handle it, that happiness - but I would quickly adjust.

I am laying a lot of shit out here today but, Christ, man - a new year approaches. A new year offers a chance for everybody to turn the page. Doubly so for me because my birthday ushers in a new calendar year and a new year of life for me.

That's powerful stuff, baby. Magic, really.

I am positioning myself to exploit all the goodness out of the resulting karma that January 1, 2022 will bring.

Gonna be a new day, baby.

My Biggest Failure in 2021

Fatness.

Weight gain is kicking my ass. Let me tell you people, hormone therapy is a motherfucker.

The problem is that the side effects of hormone therapy are relentless and I am not. 

You know the story - in the beginning I was winning this war. I lost 10 pounds when the doc kept telling me I was about to become blimpo.

At that point in time I was relentless. I exercised every day I didn't have to work. And on work days I would do the stairs. I would climb up and down flights of stairs at work - 3 or 4 times a day, two or three flights at a time.

I went on a semi-low carb diet and was fairly religious about it.

Merriam-Webster defines relentless this way: Showing or promising no abatement of severity, intensity, strength or pace.

And there lies the rub. You cannot fucking lighten up because every potato chip you eat during hormone therapy adds 5 pounds.

For months now I have been exercising sporadically at home. I have stopped doing the stairs at work. I eat 32 donuts a day.

I gained back the 10 pounds and more.

I feel like a big, fat, disgusting caricature of a human being.

Because I am a big, fat, disgusting caricature of a human being. I feel gross and uncomfortable.

I have not thrown in the towel. I proved to myself that I can win this war - I did lose 10 pounds way back in the way back. I did it once, I can do it again.

December is the springboard. I will summon up all my willpower and get fucking serious again. It is vitally important that I roll into 2022 with momentum.

For motivation I got the word relentless tattooed across my stomach. There was plenty of room for it.

My goal is to make it illegible.