Tag Archives: waiting in line

Deception as Motivation

Personal Bits

For the last couple months I’ve been putting off my promise to myself for losing 20lbs. I had been weighing myself religiously with every visit to the gym and had not noticed any great flux in my weight – it was hovering nicely around 225lbs, but 20lbs sounded so easy to do: no chips, no eating after 8pm, more salads, less sugar, bla bla bla, which made me complacent to actually doing something about it. I was making promises to myself that I’d lose it before Disney and what the hey, I had a few months to go so what’s the rush?

Last week I was standing nude waiting in line for the scale in the change room (I love walking around nude in there, no towel wrap. Freaks out the repressed Islamic/Catholics), when the guy on the scale steps off and blurts: “Finally! They fixed it!”

Huh?

I step on.

It’s one of those doctor office ones with the sliding weights. I snap the weights to 225. Nope. Too light.

227? Nope.

235? No, the weights stayed put, not enough.

242? Finally the weights balance. Oh fucking shit on a toasted English muffin with a side of fucking home fries. With ass hollandaise sauce.

I felt cheated. I felt angry. I felt like some Fat Ass Fairy came and blessed me in the night with a gift of fat. I wanted to stride naked out of the change room to the administration office of the gym and wave my blubber at them while shouting: “YOU DID THIS TO ME!!” To say this was a wake up call was a bit of an understatement. I was nearing 1/8th of a ton.

I have friends who went on various Jenny Craig/Weight Watchers programs and while I honestly commended them for their choice of healthy eating (they all looked amazing after their run), when they talked about their food intake for the day like their relationship with food resembled a troubled loved one going through rehab, I would silently thank my lucky stars I wasn’t a “food Nazi”.

These things are cyclic: I have become a Food Nazi. So I’m eating more salads, less sugars, nothing after 8pm and getting back to the gym to do an hour of cardio for each visit. This is the last I’ll speak of it, though.

End of an Era

Personal Bits, Tech

…I’m speaking to a Mr Robot?

I’m back from the store. My roommates gather around as I reveal with a flourish: the four head VCR. It cost me close to $500 on special at Sears. Cheers and back slapping ensue for a solid minute. Quickly we hook it up to the TV and settle in for a marathon of movies.

Yes. Can you tell me that figure again?

I’m waiting in line at the College. I see a girl run out of the registrar’s office in tears. I’m worried that that will be me in a few minutes. After supplies and rent and a decent week’s worth of food, I’ve got enough to play a fist full of video games in the common area.

Certainly. After the three payments of $535, $410 and $437 made in the month of May…

I’m staring at my first computer in the dark cave of my living room. I’ve made my first piece of digital art on the tiny 15″ screen: a combination of a picture of myself that I’ve applied a Peter Max type filter and some warped text over my head. I found it easy to do.

…I guess you did your taxes in one go for three years, Mr Robot?

My first web page I did as a joke (much like all my web interactions). It was a hommage to Jon Erik Hexum: All the images I could find combined with a sad midi file; uncontrollably embedded into the page; animated GIFs of torches bookended a 20 second poem I had written. My teacher laughed at the tackiness of it, saying I “grokked” the Web. But he didn’t understand why Jon Erik.

Yes. I did. Which leaves me with…?

I’m standing in the student book shop, wondering if instead of paying the $10 for another pad of newsprint for life drawing class, I could flip all my drawings from the last month over and use the back, meanwhile I could eat cheap pork chops and still have enough to go to Katrinas and have at least two drinks with my friends (who all have paying jobs) this weekend.

Well it looks like we’re showing a balance of $411.05. I guess you’ll be paying this off within 30 days? Just add $3 for the interest.

And with that, the albatross that has been around my neck for the last 20 years flies away.

I have paid off my student loan.