Hey Chris...

Don't touch my cat or I'll break your fingers.

Roky Erickson

Roky Erickson with Okkerville River, I think I have been waiting for you my entire life. Thank you for your time.

Willpower

Willpower is a tricky thing. Over the course of my life I have, at times, done things that take a great deal of willpower. I have quit smoking, quit drinking, and I once abstained from fast food for an entire year. But I am still fat and can't to seem to follow a budget to save my life (or my house.) I used to believe that willpower was an absolute, either you had it or you didn't. That clearly is not the case. It does not make much sense, however, for willpower to be transient. Why is it that I was able to get from just over 400 lbs to just under 300, but I can't seem to break from my current range of 290-310? How was I able to drive by a Carls Jr. without ordering a Big Carl for 365 days and now as soon as I am feeling too tired to cook, my car seems to pull into the drive-thru of its own volition? So maybe willpower is a pool, like battery power, that can be depleted an recharged. Great. Where do I plug in? Or mayhap willpower is a muscle that can be trained but exhausted if pushed too far. Yeah, I was doing great but then I sprained my willpower.

It seems that willpower is ultimately, like so many things, a choice. And the important thing is keeping the size of the choices we need to make in proper proportion to our ability to make those choices. I think most likely willpower is the name we give to million little choices that seem easy individually but end up adding up to one big choice. If I had had made the big choice of "I will quit smoking!" but then didn't make the hundred much smaller choices not to have this drag on this cigarette, I would still be a chimney. Similarly, if I had to attempted to lose 100 lbs with one big choice, the enormity of the task would have been overwhelming. So the question is, now that I have reminded myself of this, can I hold on to it and start once again making all the little choices? And when the darker demons of my psyche come calling, and they always do, can I avoid doing so much damage that I completely sabotage further success?

Also, since I am talking choices...I choo choo choose you!

P.S. I wanted to reference the George Jones song "Choices" many times while writing this, but none of you jerks listen to country music and it would have been meaningless to you. I hope you are all happy with yourselves. Thank you for your time.

Day One...check

Just a quickie post to say that day 1 was a success. The weights were lifted many times and with great vigor. I consumed proper amounts of nutritional food. I took Aidan to gymnastics and realized that if I attempted to follow him through one of his 1 1/2 hour long classes I would die. Painfully. Note to self: Make sure to add plenty of cardio to the plan. Perhaps it is time to dig up my ancient enemy on the courts of tennis wartime. Balls on Fire 2010! Coming shortly...my musings on willpower. Try to contain the anticipation.

Quick...Press Reboot!

A year? Seriously...a year? I wish that I could claim some amazing run of exciting adventures and discoveries that prompted this layoff from typing words into my blog, but alas I cannot. I had considered putting up a blog that attempted to summarize the last year's events and stories. It turns out I'm just a bit too lazy for even that. So...stuff happened, people did things, and I got a bit fatter. Consider yourself updated.

So, you may ask, what has prompted my return to the blogosphere? Good question, I would reply, it sure is convenient that you asked me that. I find a need for a place to come to have people help me stay honest to my goals. So I need help from the tens of you who read this to keep me on the path to usefulness. Using updates on this here corner of Al Gore's internets, I hope to motivate myself to stick with my current plan for personal enbetterification. I am going to post both my goals and my progress, or lack thereof, every several days. If I fail to post in a timely manner and any of you suspect I am hiding with a bucket of fried chicken, three cheeseburgers, and a head full of depression and defeat, please take me to task. You can post comments here, on facebook, or text me. And please feel free to drop the hammer...no mollycoddling!

I shall return in a very short time to post the initial goals, stats, and plans, but for now I am off to lift heavy things repeatedly. Thank you for your time.

A New Hope

This weekend, the kids attended a Star Wars themed birthday party. The party was great--the birthday kid's parents had planned all kinds of fun and games, had music playing, a light-saber shaped cake, even re-labeled the sodas "Yoda Soda" and "Vadar Juice." It was for a friend of Aidan's, but Annika and Aaron came, too, and all three were running about in their brown Jedi robes with foam light sabers saving the galaxy. All in all, very cute. Since then, Aidan has told his story of battling Darth Vadar to at least 3 people already, including the new family in church who happened to sit behind us today.

So, the kids are all hyped up for Star Wars. Even I am feeling nostalgic for the ol' Lucas magic. Plus, tonight Tony's out of town and I'm looking for a low-key way to keep them occupied, so into the DVD player went Episode 4. Crazy thing about this generation--there's so much existing knowledge that I actually had to prep my kids by explaining that this story takes place AFTER the Clone Wars and is about Luke Skywalker, Anakin's son. Throughout, Aidan asked questions like why they are called "storm troopers" rather than "clone troopers" and what happened to the Republic. There were several creatures on Tatooine that he wanted to know "what species are those?" and my own nerd knowledge failed me. Tony will have to fill in on his return.

They are the absolute perfect age, though. When Obi Wan first walks up all be-robed, and they're asking "who's that?," then start putting it together and all, it's pretty cool. Annika remembers a bit more of the back story and enjoys being "in the know" but still doesn't know everything that's coming; Aaron runs around during the first 40 minutes or so, but is intrigued enough to eventually climb on my lap and watch it to the end. Aidan, of course, can hardly contain his interest. In the final flight battle, he has me pause it so he can go get one of his ships "just real quick."

Watching it was tremendously fun for me because, while they know a lot of Star Wars stuff, the kiddies are experiencing the excitement of the movie itself from innocence. They don't know that Han's going to come out of nowhere at the end and cover Luke so he can hit the Death Star. I don't think even Annika remembers about Luke and Leia being siblings, so they can watch Luke's crush on Leia without thinking--hmm, a little wierd. I totally want to watch the rest of the movies now, because the good bits ("Get this walking carpet out of my way!") are all new to them, and even the stuff I don't like so much as an adult will be enjoyable because they will love it. They will totally dig the ewoks--I did when I was 9 and I don't have a problem admitting it. When we watch Epsiode 1, Aidan won't care if that kid is a lame actor, he will be so busy identifying with Anakin behind the controls of the pod-racer. I imagine they will even enjoy (Force be with us) Jar Jar Binks.

Okay, one more jem: in the first part of the movie, Aidan wonders aloud why Luke doesn't bust out his light saber to fight off the Sand People; he calls out to the movie a couple of times for "more light saber action." When it gets to the point where Obi Wan is sneaking around the Death Star and Vadar senses him, and heads off to find his former master for a final showdown, Aidan responds "Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about! Light saber battle!"



The moment when the red and blue blades crossed--in what he calls "the big X"--was pure magic for him.

Perhaps I married Vadar--perhaps I just married a big sci-fi loving dork. But unquestionably, my young ones have much of their father in them. And so the Force passes to another generation.
--Queen Amidala

Ding Ding!

Alright ladies and gents, this post could be perceived as somewhat off-color so consider yourself warned. Yesterday Aidan and Annika were playing in the front room, throwing squishy blocks at each other with as much speed as could be mustered by their little kid arms. Annika wound up a particularly strong shot and inevitably struck Aidan in is groinal area. He looked up at Annika and with his mastery of anatomical terms declared, "Hey, you almost hit me in my penis!" To which his older sister replied, "Ewwwwwwwww, gross Aidan...I would prefer if you used the term ding ding." Which would be funny enough by itself. After Aidan processed the request for a moment, he looked up at Annika and said, "OK Sissy, you almost hit me in my ding ding penis." And then he ran off to his bedroom with a gigantic grin.