I realized I needed more labels. My co-worker keeps them in her file drawer on the left side of her cabinet. So, not wanting to bother her, I figured I'd just go get them myself - and since she was at her desk, I thought it appropriate to ask.
JACK: Jessica, can I look through your draws?
Jessica: I'm gonna need you to leave, come back - and try again.
JACK complied.
I played a lot of darts in college. It wasn't something I grew up doing, though. It's just not a sport that nuyoricans play in The Big City. Of course, we're very well accustomed to sharp objects (machetes, butcher knives, box cutter - you know, the usual) but darts always made me feel kinda woozy - those metal ones that pierced through cork and made that thud sound just took a lot of getting used to. This picture here reminds me of that one time EVER I actually made a hat trick. I was stoked ... in the typical, primal masculine way - like I could've beat my own chest and roared.
(Actually, I think I may have)
But anyway - that's not the point of this post. I have been watching what I eat (I had tilapia stir fry last night, and a turkey burger with steamed veggies for lunch today) and actually wen to the gym for my 30 minutes of cardio last night!
I feel like my mind is set squarely on this goal now. It's really something I want to do (again) ... but this time, I kinda want to take the weight off and actually KEEP it off. I plan to go tot he gym again tonight ... the 2nd of my promised 3 visits to the gym this week.
So, I'm doing it - and I'm a need someone to egg me on and threaten my well-being if I don't make it to the gym 3 times this week. readddyyyy ... GO!
Lord Jesus - Jesus, please ... I'm a seriously need some You right now. I don't know what else to do, only that I need to cool down a bit before I proceed with whatever it is I have to do ... Lord Jesus - Jesus, please keep me. Keep me. You hearing me? KEEP ME.
That friend of my baby momma who thinks she's my babies' parent, who likes to undermine me and tries to usurp my parental authority ... I'm a need you to control the venom in my fangs right now because it's in quantity overflowing and in bitterness SHARP. And I will NOT let this control me.
But yuh - I'm a need help.
I just need some help trying to at least SEE the other perspective - why this woman would show up to my childrens' soccer game today (while their momma was working) and not speak a word to me ... like, what is her perspective, so that I better understand.
And what is the perspective over there that led her to walk right by me, say nothing and approach my daughter to say, "you need to get a jacket on because you're sweaty and it's cold."
Excuse me! Excuse me ... I'm, like, totally RIGHT HERE.
So, my daughter comes up to me and says "daddy, I need a jacket because I'm sweaty and its cold."
"Did ***** say that to you?"
"Yes"
"Baby, you're fine - we're going right to the car. Come on."
So, two hours later there she comes again to now my SON'S soccer game (again, baby momma still at work) and she again wanna sit there with her camera on the other side of the field and not. say. a. word. to me.
So, I walk over there - and as I approach her she smiles and says hello. (As if it was my responsibility to approach her and say hello)
"Hi, XXXXX. Did you tell (my daughter's name) that she needed a jacket."
"Yuh - it was cold and she was sweating"
"I still feel like we need to not send messages through the kids - we should talk directly"
"I didn't send any message"
"yuh, ok - but we still need to be able to talk directly"
"OK!" she exclaimed as if it was final.
So, I turn around to go back to the other side of the field where I was - and she mutters, "she DID need a jacket though."
(Oh, bitch - so RIIITTTEEE you weren't trying to undermine me AT ALL, right?)
"Nope. She didn't," I said not turning around.
And then I turned right around, looked her square in the face and said, "Really. She DIDN'T"
And I went about my way - half mad at myself for not losing my mind on her and half proud of myself for not showing my ass in front of the SCORES 1st graders all playing soccer there.
As soon as the game was over - she packed up her chair and left - didn't say goodbye to me or the kids ... and she was in her car long before the kids all finished running the line, high fiving every player on the opposing team and saying "good game" about a dozen times.
AU REVOIR
LATER THAT NIGHT (a few minutes ago)
My daughter asks me which wig I like on her doll. I said the one with long hair. She smiled.
"That doesn't surprise you does it?" I asked with a smirk.
"Nope. Cuz you like girls with long hair." (I told her this after she convinced her mother to cut off her long hair and let her walk around with a bob)
"Right"
"XXXXX said that's YOUR problem."
Lord Jesus - Jesus, please ... I'm a seriously need some You right now. I don't know what else to do, only that I need to cool down a bit before I proceed with whatever it is I have to do ... Lord Jesus - Jesus, please keep me. Keep me. You hearing me? KEEP ME.
So, there were a few times this week when I just decided to indulge in the empty calories ... but not in the "eat until the store doesn't have any more" sort of way. I wanted a kit kat after dinner ... and I had it, accounting for the calories I was eating. And every day since my new mantra I have stayed below 2,000 calories every single day. The result was me, minus 1 pound.
I know it's meaningless in a way - but if that was my week WITHOUT going to the gym (seriously, I watched everything and counted every calorie and I still didn't work out AT ALL), it's motivated me to try it again next week (< 2,000 calories per day) AND go to the gym thrice.
I'm not even trying to start large. My goal is to go to the gym three times and each time do 30 minutes of cardio.
(I'm an enigma in that I so love cardio and prefer it to weight training)
That's it ... I can do a week of 2,000 calories, so I'll do that again. And will add three itty bitty 30 minutes cardio sessions this week.
I'll report my findings in about 7 days.
My last blog post was a glimpse into something deep within me that I have been dealing with and not really sharing with anyone. For all of the smiling and laughing I do, I've not exactly felt all jolly and shit lately. For a few months now I've just been trudging along - maintaining, as it were.
Nothing's really fallen apart - the kids still love me and I'm still a good daddy, albeit cranky at times. But you know what, they're amazing resilient, them little fuckers ... you just tell them that daddy's cranky and just wants to lay on the couch and they really do figure out some imaginative game to play and allow me my space. I love that about them ... that it's the result of a few ridiculous tirades of mine is a whole 'nother issue and that's not the point.
Work really hasn't fallen through the cracks, although sometimes I wish I could fake a debilitating ailment that would keep me out of work but still keep me limber enough to lay back, feet to Jesus and continue to keep Trojan Company going (oh don't judge and act like you don't have a family member who's doing that shit right the fuck now!) ... yet, I still gotta work and although it's maddeningly busy (they cut 1/3 of the staff and we still have some 3000 people coming to a convention next month - right, THAT kind of busy) I've not let anything get too totally out of whack.
Then there's the love life - totally (and STILL) nonexistent ... so, PAR in the love department.
So, although nothing is completely gone to shit, everything is just enough off-kilter to cause an anxiety spike ... I feel like I'm that man on TV spinning plates on dowels of various lengths (heights?) and several of them are teetering on the brink of a certain death (by shatter), wobbling perilously on their pedestals waiting for the one lonely me to come save it. Nothing's fallen down off no wooden dowel, but they all WANT to fall, and they're all just laughing at me as the audience squirms audibly while I break sweat to ensure I keep everything spinning.
Too many parts of my life are wobbly. Chief among them ... my health. There was a time when I was at the gym 4 times a week and religiously watching what I ate, to the tune of 1800 calories per day. I did this for 10 months ... EVERY day counting calories ... and going to the gym religiously.
It was the first time in my adult life that I actually felt good, free from moodiness and depressive cycles, free from that annoying wedge of fat that reminds me I'm out of shape every time I tie my shoes ...
And then Jaded said something to me that took root somehow. She said, "you need to have control issues." And yesterday when I woke up from my Pringles(tm) coma, I realized something ...
I don't want to eat like this anymore. I don't. I control my body - my body does not control me.
And with that chrisette-like epiphany, I developed that as mantra. I control my body - my body does not control me.
And I said it today when I was choosing breakfast ... and said it today while I was choosing an item off the fast food menu (I went for roast chicken instead of the yummy looking deep friend chicken breast sandwich with bacon) and I didn't eat but a handful of fries, leaving the majority of them in the bag.
I control my body - my body does not control me.
And today, at 5:36 PM CDT, I have so far consumed only 1,150 calories. And anything more than 650 calories ain't making into me for dinner because
I control my body - my body does not control me.
(when that mantra makes it into my sex life, I'll let you know. It might shut JACK down for a while if it does. As my alter ego, JACK is totally a whorish fucker who says things like "feet to Jesus!" JACK's a sacrilege.)
I control my body - my body does not control me.
I can't seem to get a handle on this eating thing. It's all I do ... and I can't quit it.
I ran across a new word. abstemious. It's a ROCKIN' new word and I love it. Except it's the complete opposite of my current "shovel food into my mouth" dilemma.
I worked so hard after my divorce to shed 30+ pounds (then another 10 during that one week of pure unadulterated hell, but that's another story) ... and the instant I got back into a relationship, I stopped going to the gym ... and slowly, the weight came back on.
The truth of the matter is that I stopped going to the gym during that week of pure, unadulterated hell ... because losing 10 pounds in one week isn't cute. And if I went to the gym, I would've ended up in the hospital. When I say I wasn't eating that week ... trust me - I wasn't eating.
But anyway - when I got back into a relationship, it was a good enough excuse not to go back to the gym. So, it's HIS fault - THAT mother fucker.
So, here I am wanting now to lose 30 pounds again ... and yet, this evening I had two bowls of cereal, two brownies and a bowl of beans.
Not in that order, but who cares - and shut up about the beans ... I'm Puerto Rican ... that's comfort food, carajo!
OMG! There's rice in that there kitchen. Ok, I might have to tie myself to the radiator.
except I have central air.
shit!
I swear there's a santero somewhere reveling in the mess I am right now.
a MESS, I tell you.
and then I was only kidding about that santero but there WAS that one dude I messed with who's boyfriend is a santero and I went through with it anyway.
fuck.
I bet it's HIS fault too.
Because, let's face it - I need someone ELSE to blame for my eating a lot and moving very little.
So, it's the ex- and the santero ex of the dude I messed with when the santero wasn't his ex- yet.
Yuh. I need to bathe in holy water ...
... do they have that at the bath house?
I was sitting in my patio this morning (yes *IN* my patio; it's enclosed) and a peaceful Monarch butterfly fluttered by the partially open storm door. You should know that the storm door STAYS partially opened because for several years the gutter up there would overflow and soak the wooden door frame ... yes, for years. So the swollen wooden threshhold won't allow the door to close completely. The gutter has since been replaced with a wider downspout and it usually doesn't overflow unless foliage has blocked the downspout - I've had to go out there with a step stool ... out in your typical midwestern rain/hail/OMGAFUCKINGTORNADO storms to get soaked and dirty reaching into that downspout to stop the water from coming in.
But anyway, I've digressed. This monarh butterfly, beautiful and serene, fluttered by and toyed with the idea of coming indoors. But it inspected the door and its surroundings and continued to flutter peacefully outdoors above my freshly mowed lawn. The air smelled of cut grass and summer as I watched the butterfly, smoked my cigarette and remembered that those mother fuckers live like two weeks tops!
So, I had an epiphany sitting there - let me stop complaining about all the financial stress, and the anxiety and all the nonsense ... it's there to ensure I live. I have been dealing with this emotional yoyo for a while now and at times I've felt so tense that I just KNEW that the marrow in my bones was going to spew out of me, like it was the effluent of some wastewater plant ... like the one that discharges out into Lake Michigan - you know, the one that closes all the beaches for the filth?
Who cares! If I had it as easy at that butterfly, I'd flutter from today through Thursday into some pesudo bliss before I gave up the ghost, too soon to enjoy the good things I've enjoyed in life so far.
Speaking of which - I need to buy more lube.
A woman walks into the downtown welfare office, trailed by 15 kids.
"WOW," the social worker exclaims, "are they all yours?"
"Ya they are all Mine," the flustered momma sighs, having heard that
Question 20 thousand times before.
She says, "Sit down Leroy." All the children rush to find seats..
"Well,"says the social worker, "then you must be here to sign up. I'll need all your children's names."
Well, to keep it simple, the boys are all named Leroy and the girls are all named Leighroy.
In disbelief, the case worker asks, "Are you serious? They're ALL named Leroy?"
Their momma replied, "Well, yes-it makes it easier..
"When it's time to get them out of bed and ready for school, I yell,'Leroy!'
An' when it's time for dinner, I just yell 'Leroy!' an they all comes a runnin.
"An' if I need to stop the kid who's running into the street, I just yell Leroy' and all of them stop. It's the smartest idea I ever had, namin' them all Leroy."
The social worker thinks this over for a bit, then wrinkles her forehead and says tentatively, "But what if you just want ONE kid to come, and not the whole bunch?"
"Then I call them by their last names."
