Mountains Made Low

(with apologies for shameless self-promotion, but I’m still very excited about this sort of thing)

The Saga of the Incredible Shrinking Mike, that is.

I don’t weigh myself every day. Doing so is a recipe for disaster and depression and depression-induced cookie binges. I’ve been working hard at losing weight, and doing so healthily (after becoming first a posterchild for starvation dieting—can’t really say just starvation since I started out at about 360—and then the incredible human yo-yo in the wake of the divorce), since about my birthday (so almost six months ago). I’ve been eating (more) right, and working out, and feeling good about the process as well as the product.

After crashing from 360 to 290 between October 15 and December 15 last year, I probably got back up to about 320 by April (don’t really know—didn’t own a scale until June, but know I weighed 295 when I went to the doc in early December and about 305 when I bought the scale in June). So I’m assuming 320 as my “starting weight” for this healthy-effort-making round. (Backing up farther, the first round was accidental, starting in May of 2005, and stabilizing pretty quickly by the fall of that year, I dropped about 40 pounds; yes, I too, can do the math: on my 30th birthday, I weighed about 400; the second round was 65 pounds when I basically stopped eating for two months, with a lovely 25 pound rebound after that when I started eating again.) For round three, I decided to do it right: diet and exercise, and I’m choosing 320 as my starting point.

All of this is to say that as of today, the first I’ve weighed myself in about a week, I have lost 52 pounds in the past six months, and am under 270 for the first time since probably my junior year of high school, at 268. The only time I remember seeing numbers lower than that on scale (that I can pinpoint) was the summer between my sophomore and junior years, when I was very ill (and not eating/keeping food down/in) for about two weeks, after which I weighed 245; also I was just past 6 feet tall at the time.

So for now, I’m ecstatic. To paraphrase the Beatles, I’m 5/8 the man I used to be (roughly). Actually, I will be in (I hope) another two or three months when I’ve reached my immediate goal (250). But for now, I’m happy. Very very happy.

Before today dawned, I thought I had my act together. I would go to my eye doctor appointment in Boone at 9:15, and then be on with my day at work. Oh, if only….

I did, in fact, make my appointment just fine… no, you know… I need to back up. The appointment this morning was for a follow-up on my new contacts, before we actually order a big box of them. So I have one trial pair. Actually, as of yesterday, I have half a trial pair. Got to the doc this morning, wearing my glasses, and that was that. Can’t check the contacts if I don’t have the contacts. They’re ordering me another pair, and we’ll try this again. I’ve been trying to get this all figured out for about three months now.

Really.

So was out of there before the appointment was supposed to start, and jetted back home. Why not straight to work? Because I had to be home to meet the kerosene guy (my house is kerosene heated) who might show up as early as 10. Since it’s the first time I’ve had the tank filled, I had to be there. Yeah, kerosene guy shows up after noon. My class is at 1. By the time we get everything worked out with kerosene, it’s past 12:30. Apparently, the people who sold me the house left a bunch of kerosene in the tank—it was only down 30 gallons (it holds 275). So the tank is full and getting it topped only cost about a hundred bucks. Not bad. But there’s now no way I’ll make my class at one. So I did the only thing I could; I canceled it.

I feel like such a bad teacher.

I also thought there was something up with the roof/roofer today, and he wanted to meet me this morning, but that was apparently crossed wires—he had confused me with someone else. But that’s okay.

I apparently had to be here anyway.

The League championships in baseball are pretty much like the primaries in politics to me. That’s why I’m now (for the next 10 days or so) a Red Sox fan.

Like in politics: so your guy didn’t win the primary. Does that mean you leave the party?

And the Indians just lost to the Sox, true. But my guys are AL guys; so are the Sox.

Now, in baseball, if “your guys” are rivals of the team that wins the league, it’s okay to root for the other guys in the World Series. Like this year: Yankees fans are permitted to want the Rockies to win—I know it would cause many Yankees fans physical pain to want the Red Sox to win.

Me, the only time I cheer for an NL team in the Series is when that team is the Reds (I allow myself a secondary loyalty—I was born south of Columbus, after all, even if I grew up in northeastern Ohio). There’s no AL team that my Tribe loyalty demands that I hate enough to cheer against them in the Series (though, I’ll admit, the White Sox come close). My World Series priorities:

1. Indians
2. Reds
3. The American League

Those three simple rules cover all possibilities, so I’ll say it again: GO SOX!

… GO SOX!

…that the ALCS Game 7 is tonight?

No, I am not.

What has been lost in this strange post-season—a post-season replete with sweeps and featuring the red-hot Colorado Rockies—is that this ALCS features the two best teams in baseball this year. Both the Indians and the Sox finished 30 games over .500; both teams won 96 games this year; both teams handled their division series match-ups pretty handily.

So is it surprising that they now stand deadlocked at three in the LCS? Is it surprising that each team has had two games in which they’ve erupted for huge (6+ run) innings? Is it surprising that it comes down to a rematch of the Game 3 starters (Jake Westbrook and Dice-K Matsuzaka) with the Tribe’s 15-game winning sinker-baller (Paul Byrd) and the Sox’ pitching ace (Josh Beckett) in the hole for possible relief efforts in tonight’s game?

No, no, and no.

The funny part, from the perspective of a Tribe fan, though, is that Westbrook (6-9, 4.23 ERA regular season) and Byrd with his 82 mph fastball have been the Tribe’s secret weapons this post-season. But it’s worthwhile to remember that Westbrook is a career 4-2 against the Red Sox—several Sox players can hit him (Manny Ramirez has a career .500 batting average against Westbrook), but Jake’s .667 winning percentage might be the biggest statistic going into tonight’s game—that and Game 4 winner Byrd’s availability for long relief if needed.

The most important intangible for tonight, though, has nothing to do with the Tribe. After his Game 3 loss, Matsuzaka was seen in the Sox clubhouse, stunned and disconsolate, for more than a half hour—not changing out of his uniform, talking to reporters, or even his teammates. The big question for the Sox is whether Dice-K will be able to shake it off and raise himself out of that funk. Or will Beckett be repeating his 2003 NLCS performace: long relief in Game 7 following a Game 5 victory?

That’s the question.

That and the whereabouts of Travis Hafner’s bat.

Yes, the week-long Fall Break is almost over. Starting tomorrow, it’s back to the normal daily and weekly routine for me. I didn’t get as much done over break as I might have liked, but I did make some progress, some of which has been detailed in the blog already. Here’s what I know now that I didn’t know before break started:

• I’m pretty happy with the direction my job is going. After a productive meeting with the Provost on Thursday and a productive email exchange with the Assistant Dean throughout the week, I’m liking the general ebb and flow of my work. I know there’s still work to be done, arguments to be made, in terms of making all of this discussion a reality, but I was able, this week, to assert a little bit of control over the discussions of the direction of my job, and to mostly stay out of the other situations going on around me at work that are, basically, unproductive. I don’t want to say too much because there’s a lot that still needs to take its final shape and solidify, but, for now, I’m pretty much content with the direction things are going.
• I spent some time working on a couple of writing projects throughout the week. One was an article project that I’ve been working on for a while, that’s been rejected by a major journal already; the other is a creative project that I’ve been working on since the summer. What they have in common is that they both need some work. The article isn’t bad in its present form (notwithstanding the not-so-nice comments from reviewers), but I’m not sure where to send it next, as is. So I’m thinking I’ll rework it a little bit (okay, a lot) for a slightly different audience. The creative project, though… that needs work. I hate to say it, but it’s currently too literary, and it’s pretty cliched in several aspects. I was pretty happy with it before, but I think I need to rethink what’s going on in the story. It’s great in some particulars (if I do say so), but it needs a distressing amount of help in others.
• I’ve been reminded, on several fronts and in several ways, over this break that I have amazing friends. It’s scary to me how often I forget that.

So, for today, the last day of break, I’m going to do a couple loads of laundry, run the dishwasher, bake some bread, and comment on some student papers for my writing conferences tomorrow. I’m back “on” at 9:20 am on Monday. And that will round out my break nicely, I think.

(do you notice the theme in the title of this post?)

The stuff I wrote yesterday? Yeah.

Nevermind.