Hello, My Name Is...

The lawnmower would not start. I pulled and pulled on the cord, and nothing happened. There is a lawnmower repair shop in Lemon Grove, so I hauled it over there this morning. The guy wants a hundred dollars to get it fixed. Going to take a week. The machine has been used once and I've already fucked it up. It sat for a year, and now the spark plug is probably fouled. I couldn't even bother to pull the spark plug out and look at it. I deserve to get fucked in the ass.

Shit like this makes me feel like a fraction of a man. Worthless. I'm almost fifty-two years old and I can barely wipe my ass. I have to pay someone to look at the lawnmower that has been used once.

I think about my relative status. My socio-economic net worth. My sexual status. It is entirely possible that I will never have sexual relations with a woman for the rest of my life. And I sleep with one every night of the week.

Despite my college degree and long, continuous work history, I feel like I have very few marketable skills. I do have a job, and I must be the lowest slob there. There are people with whom I have worked for months that haven't bothered to learn my name.

I shouldn't say people, I should say women. The other men that I work with learn my name immediately and use it frequently. I believe that another man will want to take my measure right away and figure out his relative status. The women that work there probably believe that because they work the front of the house, that they have de facto higher status than I.

I have struggled with this for years. Sometimes I tell myself that they are just defective people who lack basic social skills. It always comes down to two possible explanations. Either they don't know my name, or they know it, and are unwilling to use it. If they can't be bothered to learn my name, then I feel bad because it confirms my belief that they think I am unimportant. If they are unwilling to use it, then it confirms my belief that women are hostile to men that they think are sexually interested in them.

I wish I had a playful way to inform them that I want to hear my name once in a while. It is nice to be greeted at the start of a shift, and it is nice to hear someone say thanks after their shift. My ego demands so much more, and even that need makes me feel bad, and confirms my lower status. Its like a shit-burger that hurts to choke down.

I believe that the only one who can confer higher status on me, is myself. A real man knows how to take apart an engine, and put it back together. If he can't, he has enough material worth to pay someone who can. Someone who can muster neither is just someone's bitch.

February Weight Loss Summary

I will remember this month as one in which I became more mindful of balance. At the beginning of February, I was preparing vegetable juice so that I could have three portions per day. Within two weeks, I had stopped completely. The cramps in my stomach had become too much to bear.

I went off dairy for ten days. I had hoped the condition was lactose intolerance. It made sense because the feeling was incomplete digestion, incomplete emptying of my stomach. I felt good and happy and then, ten days in, had some brussels sprouts in the morning. The cramps came back.

But by then I was already becoming aware of the need for balance. I was eating a can of beans in the morning, and a chicken avocado sandwich for lunch. My weight wasn't spiking upward. I wasn't in ketosis, and burning fat, but then again, I couldn't maintain ketosis the way I was going.

So I ended the month today at 184.49. Reversion to the mean, I guess. I began the month at 183.94. So I gained 0.57 pounds. That is what, two thousand calories? I could burn that off in a weekend. And I learned that I could eat brussels sprouts in the evening.

There were nine days of weight gain during the month, twelve days of weight loss, and five days of no change. The no-change days were aggravated by fluctuating scale readings. If I couldn't get a static weight on two consecutive weigh-ins, then I would use the previous day's reading. The days of weight gain represent huge spikes, which explains why they brought the rolling average up so far.

So, what is the plan for March? I am five pounds away from my goal, and it feels like it is beyond the horizon. I'm not quite ready to quit. But I don't know if I am going to aim for ketosis. I think I would rather have some protein mixed into a can of beans early in the day, so I want those low-glycemic carbs.

Sherry bought a Vitamix as an anniversary gift for us, so I do plan on re-introducing a juicing regimen. I think for now I will eat my brussels sprouts cooked well, and use other nutrients in the juicer. I have to lose one pound to get below my lowest low of 183.54. That happened six weeks ago. Since then, I have had higher highs and higher lows. But I never give up.

January Weight Loss Summary

Already the fourth of February. Haven't acquired the gift I intend for my beloved Sherry. Still haven't written up my January weight loss progress. Sometimes I wonder if I should track my progress daily; on those days I should recall this day.

I didn't record my weight today. I think the batteries on the scale need changing, because I stepped on it and got four different numbers. That has happened before; in those cases I entered the previous day's number into the spreadsheet. I still haven't decided what number to submit.

Days like this make me want to quit. My stomach ailment is flaring. It's possible there are worse things to suffer. Not knowing what it is makes that hard to say.

I just feel like I have to write something. I wrote a comment to Althouse's blog yesterday, then stared at it for five minutes. Then I deleted it. There were too many boxing references, and I couldn't let my words stand.

Words freak me out that way. I don't like when I put words out into the ether, and they don't go down well. As though there are universal adjudicators out there who will stuff the wrong ones back down my throat, if I am not careful.

I have been ruminating about Bill-O's interview with 44 for two days. While I walk the dogs, I formulate syntax that would describe my feelings about the interview, for the people who read the comments of the blog.

The interview disturbed me deeply, and I am still thinking about it. My first impression was that Bill-O has not a scintilla of charm, and he tipped his pitches. The network should give the next interview to Megyn.

The interviewer should decide beforehand what they want out of the meeting. Whether they want a "gotcha" moment, or do they want the subject to honestly reveal something about themselves. I believe that both of those goals were unattainable with Bill-O. He doesn't have the ability to put his subject at ease.

I thought about quitting my diet today. I could have eaten a bunch of carbs and just said fuck it. But I couldn't really eat anything. There were some salted almonds in the morning. After lots of chicken broth. My stomach feels like it hasn't emptied completely. If I were completely faithful and mindful of my perceived hunger, I wouldn't eat at all. Then around two, my blood sugar would bottom out, and I would eat, then, bad food choices the rest of the day.

It feels like acid reflux without the burning, and there is a cramp between my stomach and intestine. If I push on the cramp, then I can make myself pass a little gas. But I get tired of that, and tired of eating vegetables to lose those last five pounds, and dream of day after day of foot-long subs loaded with vinegar.

Tonight I decided on twelve-year old scotch, hoping that the alcohol would kill whatever parasite took up residence in my duodenum. I started 'juicing' in January, using the magic bullet to pulverize beets and brussels sprouts and daikon radish and kale and ginger. I ended the month at 183.97 lbs, after beginning the month at 185.17. That was a net loss of 1.2 pounds, which was about the same as December.

There were fifeteen down days in January. There were twelve up days. And there were three days unchanged. Hm, only makes thirty, oh well.

December Weight Loss Summary

December was the second full month of weight tracking. I weigh myself every day. That number is entered into a spreadsheet, which calculates my seven-day and twenty-day moving averages. The reasoning behind this is that while my daily weight may vary to a great degree, averaging out my weight smooths out the bumps.

The numbers also serve a useful purpose when show together on a chart. The twenty-day average is very smooth and doesn't change much from day to day. The seven-day average is a little bumpier, and is a close approximation of what direction my weight is trending. The interaction between the two trend lines further reveals trends. For example, when the seven-day moving average crosses the 20 day, there is a confirmation of a trend in that direction.

On December 1, my seven-day average was 186.31. Today, my seven-day average was 185.09. This represents a loss of 1.22 lbs for the month. There were thirteen days with a weight gain, fourteen days with a weight loss, and four days of no change. There was a ten pound difference between my actual weight of 192 on December 3, and my actual weight of 182 on December 23. My highest rolling average weight was 187.29, lowest was 184.26.

The main thing that I learned about myself is the need to go to bed hungry. I don't know if it is better to eat three large meals of five small meals. I'm still learning. But I do know that the closer to bedtime that I eat, the poorer my performance. There have been days when I have had two thousand calories before noon, yet still manage to squeak out a loss. Considering my usual early bedtimes, the best time to stop eating is five p.m.

Fukushima

Feeling a little pissed off right now. It started last night. I read an article describing high radiation levels thirty km from Fukushima. Two days in a row. Dose rates that would be lethal. TEPCO executive weeping on TV, admitting they underestimated the severity of the incident.

Thousands of miles away, across the Pacific, we are receiving particles from this disaster. Our dose rates are very low, but they're not zero. And that Japanese fallout is touching me and pissing me off.

I turned on the TV this morning, and our President and family have arrived in Brazil. They looked happy, relaxed and excited to be on a nice family trip together. A staffer was undoubtedly on hand nearby, to provide minute by minute updates on his NCAA pool.

Yesterday, we agreed to a no-fly zone over Libya, at the urging of the Arab League. Queefdaffi was last seen attacking opposition forces at a faster rate. What purpose does this serve? Are we going to go after Queefdafi personally, or just his troops? To what end? Just send a SEAL team in and take the guy out and call it a day.

We should be pouring resources into controlling Fukushima. Don't we have strike teams, and Predator drones, and robots? The United States should assume operational control over the situation. Someone in the Administration should be talking to the American people twice daily. Because there are lots of people really freaked out right now, stoked by the media. I may be un-pissed off enough to go to work today, but it may well be a question of management. Deep down, I am frustrated that the guy is still voting, "Present."

House Haiku

House on Rogers Road
Descanso Gardens outside
Gophers troll at will

First Day

The title of this post was about to become a reference to the last day of residence at Calavo. It was going to be titled, "Last Day," and the image in my mind was the scene from the movie, "Logan's Run, " with the crowd filing obediently amid the soothing public address.

First Day suits a look to the future.

I was screwing around on the Facebook, and put Anita online. That was weird. My page had feeds from her, and mutual friends to suggest. Like Rich, and Kelley. I just wanted to get around the moderators at Huffpo. I made a comment about Michael Moore's story on Thompson, and waited two days for it to appear, but they ended up deleting it. I believe I know the reason. Huffpo moderators must adhere to a ten to one ratio of liberal comments to conservative. Or they weight reported abuse more if the allegedly abusive comments are from a conservative commenter.

Doesn't matter. It was perfect. A female Hispanic, a real latina, who could be a conservative. A poetess. She lives, but has to lay low awhile. I would die of shame and embarrasment if one of my facebook friends thought I was messing around with them personally.

It is my last day of six in a row at work. And what a doozy we have! Two huge catering orders. Get the pissa dough out right away, and start the lasagna trays at ten-thirty. Have huge pots of boiling water going all day. Check.

Speaking of the facebook, I unfriended Kelley a few days ago. I could have blocked his news feed, but the news feeds would still be out there, tempting me, low hanging fruit. I blocked Ray's news feed, but still keep him as a friend. A facebook friend. Which has now penetrated enough aspects of our daily lives to acheive the tipping point.

Serenity Defense

Feeling very good today, Sunday, Father's Day. Friday and Saturday had to defend all day. I could tell as soon as I woke up that I would have anxiety attacks those days. They started small, and were barely perceptible. By the time I was at work they completely dominated me.

It was difficult to concentrate on my tasks. I was running about three-quarters, kind of in a fog. It was very discouraging and difficult to concentrate. I'm not even sure that I was experiencing classic panic attacks. I don't know how else to describe them.

That is why I titled this post, Serenity Defense. I don't want to be trapped in a prison of words. I want to be liberated. No person would be able to live a normal life, going through what I have. So far, the correlation between playing defense against these anxiety attacks and being at work is one hundred percent.

I can't quit my job, though. There is no way that this would be covered under W.C. Stress is part of everyone's job. Some minor abuse at work is probably a fact of life for the majority of us who work for wages.

The other day I had the insight that perhaps these defenses are part of a subconcious post-traumatic stress reaction. Familiar roles are being played by the hostile, abusive waitress (mother figure) and the engaging but virtually absent boss (father figure). The father figure fails to protect his charge from hostility because he is mostly blind to it, since the mother figure is capable of projecting saccharine sweetness when necessary.

Perhaps my issue is just an irregular heartbeat. The challenge would be to figure out whether it is life-threatening or not. It is not fluttering today. Friday after work, I went to the gym and spent twenty-five minutes on the stairs. Even though I warmed up, I never got my heart rate above 140. I repeated the ritual I learned as a teenager running cross-country. Completely expel my lungs with three or four exhalations to each sip of inhalation. Usually doing this once will adjust my blood CO2, reset my heart and allow me to get into a comfortable rythym.

This ritual proved ineffective, no matter how many times I tried it. I never got into a rythym on Friday. The effort did calm me down a bit, and Friday night was a bit more serene. When I arose Saturday, my heart started fluttering right away. I hit the gym and worked out for seventy minutes. Forty-five minutes of weights followed by twenty-five minutes of cardio. Again, I never got into a rythym.

Work was kind of a nightmare. I never have the other classic symptoms, like sweating or dizzyness. Just a heart rate that seems to skip a beat, then make up for it with a second hard beat and a third beat that is harder still. Repeated thousands of times. Dozens of times I tried to exhale completely in a pulsing rythym until I felt a reset, but it never took.

When I got home, I jumped into the pool and floated on a huge innertube, staring at the bottom. The colliding surface waves refracted bright sunshine as intertwined strands and cords of pure light on the bottom of the pool. They crashed against each other violently and I closed my eyes. When I opened them a few moments later, the refracted rays were bouncing a bit more slowly against each other. I closed my eyes again and again, until the bottom was a diffuse pattern of calmly undulating rays. I could see a spider on the bottom of the pool. About two feet below the surface, a single particle of vegetation hung weightless in suspended motion.

Two Thumbs Down

Way down. Film critic Roger Ebert has weighed in on the immigration debate. On Cinco de Mayo, five students from Morgan Hill were suspended for wearing clothing with American flag designs. Roger twittered that those students should be "forced to share a lunch table with students who wear the hammer-and-sickle on the Fourth of July."

This argument is flawed on so many levels, and reflects such a child-like level of reasoning, that I am stunned. The man is a film critic, not a political scientist. There is no reason he should be commenting on the 'hammer-and-sickle,' symbol of international communism. Unless he is commenting on some deleted scenes from "Red Heat," or "Red Dawn," he avoid communism. Unless there is some lunchroom scene in "Gorky Park," that I missed, the man knows very little about communism, and should keep his mouth shut.

Which would be difficult, since he has no more lower jaw. Now he has the figurative jawbone of an ass. The only way his analogy makes sense, is if those Morgan Hill students were to time-travel back to 1985, then hop a trans-continental flight to the Soviet Union. Then they could feel the shame of being an 'outsider' at a lunch table with little commie students, who would be wearing the hammer-and-sickle. Not that anyone would have any choice about what insignia they could wear, let alone the ability to complain openly about it.

Stick to movie reviews, Ebert. I'm done with you. I would have preferred to not know the level of your ignorance, and emotional immaturity. I just want to know what you think about "Iron Man 2." Not anymore. Have a great life, and enjoy sucking your dinner through a straw for the rest of your life.

Regina

I just got home from work. I am shaking with what I believe to be an anxiety attack. I hurried through my tasks and left early, just so I wouldn't have to face Regina. I don't have anything to be anxious or afraid about. My beloved father passed last year, and left me enough money to buy a house, for cash. I believe that I will have to go on medication to control this anxiety.

For several months, I have been suffering severe upset stomach. I have eliminated every food imaginable, hoping that I was suffering a food allergy. I will be seeing a doctor within the next few weeks to confirm that I don't have an ulcer or worse. I believe at this point it is stress-related.

I believe that there is a middle ground that her and I can come to, and continue to work together. I would like to understand what it is, that I have done, that has so upset her. I have never raised my voice to her in anger. There was one time three years when I used profanity in her presence, but it was not directed at her. I try and always say, "Please," when calling her orders.

What do I get in return? She has never once returned my hello greeting at work. I have greeted her hundreds of times with no reply. She may claim indifference to me in general, but that is outright hostility. I have put thousands of her orders through the window, cheerfully, without so much as a single thank you.

I believe that a hostile, abusive workplace harms everyone around. I also believe that there is a peripheral negative effect on customers. She operates on a principle of shame, not dignity. If there is a problem in a relationship involving her, then it is the other parties's fault, in no way her own. This is why I have held out hope that if I keep improving my attitude, then eventually, it will rub off on her. At the very least, I would be able to hold my head up and feel that I tried.

Unfortunately, about a week ago, I crossed a bridge with her that I cannot un-cross. It involves a story about her that another server told me. I won't repeat it in this letter, but I was deeply offended, and saw her in her true light, or lack thereof.

Perhaps my anxiety is about my fear of keeping myself in check, being afraid of saying something I can't take back. Sounds about right. Anyway, please keep in mind the possibility of a meeting of the minds, as it were. I believe it will make all the difference.

Indoctrination, Interrupted

Dennis Prager says that it is possible that a person could go their entire life without being exposed to a single conservative idea or principle. School-children are indoctrinated rather than educated. They are taught to feel compassion for animals and the environment, but not personal responsibility. Then they attend liberal institutions of higher education, to earn their B.A.'s, M.A.'s, and PhD's. The rest of their lives are filled with exposure to liberal friends, culture, and media.

I was on track to become one of these people. As a child, I was riding in my father's car, and we passed a police station. A black man was being taken out of a patrol car by an officer. Since I was taught very early on by my liberal mother that black people were victims of society and poverty, I offered to my father, "He probably just stole a loaf of bread." He was incensed, and let me know, gently, that there was no way I should assume that.

Too bad for me that I didn't have a father in the home until I was already in high school. When I was in college, Ronald Reagan was elected. The left constantly portrayed him as a trigger-happy moron, so I voted for the other guy. About a year or two into Reagan's first term, my father took us on a ski trip to Mammoth. I liked to go off on my own, pressing my skill on the black diamond runs.

On one lift, I rode with a gentleman who brought the conversation around to politics. He said he was glad that Reagan was President, because we shouldn't be giving welfare to able-bodied people. "They should be working like the rest of us, if they can." I agreed with that, inside of my heart of hearts.

It wasn't until my final Economics class in senior year that I was exposed to a conservative point of view by a professor. I went to U.C. San Diego, which is to the right of Berkeley and Columbia, but left of just about everyone else. My professor was this thin, bald guy in his forties. He liked to put three or four packets of sugar in his styrofoam cup of coffee before class. The subject of executive compensation came up. Somewhere in my heart, I believed that to grub for money was kind of dirty. I knew that I was preparing myself for a career of some sort, but I still had no idea what kind of work I wanted to do. Maybe a management position, if not graduate school.

The idea that C.E.O.'s were all grossly overpaid had been drummed into all of our heads. My professor mentioned one executive who made $300,000 per year, and the classroom let out a collective 'tsk-tsk.' These individuals were responsible for earning a return of investment on the resources placed in their trust, he pointed out. That amount is commensurate with the value of those resources. This was a radical idea to the classroom, one that had never been considered. And these were all Economics majors. Had it not been for that one professor, one never knows what kind of political ideology I would gravitate toward. I like to identify with my father, so I like to think my drift toward libertarian/conservative would have been inevitable, but you never know...