9:29 am - Friday, Mar. 18, 2005
Note To Self: I'm On A MISSION Here

Sun 3/13/05 (1:29 p.m.)

Just got back from the grocery store, where I spent more than I wanted to.

Watching what I eat, I've lost a pound a week each of the last three weeks.

(Only fifty-seven more to go...)

Right now, I feel discouraged at the sacrifices, and the relatively meagre result so far.

But everyone says losing weight slowly, over time, by eating sensibly and exercising, is the way to go.

And if it takes me a year or thereabouts to get where I want to be, then it takes a year (Or thereabouts). I have to get used to the idea that some things, maybe most things that are actually worth doing, are "for the long haul"; I didn't turn into a fat tub of goo over a matter of weeks, so it's really not reasonable to expect to "reverse course" in a matter of weeks.

Mon 2/16/05

I have two main anxieties about sex: I'm afraid I'll never have sex again, and I'm afraid I will.

Right now, if you gave me the choice between having sex with a beautiful woman, and having the lead in a movie, I'd take the lead in a movie because, for one reason, I'd have much less "fear of failure" there. After all, I've acted within the last ten years, have demonstrated some ability there, and have comparatively recent "practical experience".

But sex...?

I barely remember what actual sex is like, and am starting to suspect I was never very good at it "back in the day".

But anyway...

Thurs 3/17/05 (1:17 a.m.)

Two quotes about God (From the March "Sunbeams" section of The Sun):

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

-Anne Lamott-

He who would make friends with God must remain alone or make the whole world his friend.

-Mohandas K. Gandhi-

My sense of it, sadly, is that there are a lot more religious types that have "created God in their own image" than have "made the whole world their friend".

And speaking as a guy whose beliefs fall somewhere on an atheistic-to-agnostic continuim, a guy who wasn't thrilled to wake up one day and discover that he was suddenly living in a theocracy, I'd be happy if most of the people beating the drum for God would choose instead to just shut the hell up and "remain alone".

So a task that should have taken a half hour was finally completed, maybe two weeks after I first brought the bench home from Target.

Earlier this evening, I went down to the sporting goods store on Wilshire, and after a fair amount of indecision, bought an "all-in-one set"�a "center bar", two dumbbells (that screw into the ends of the "center bar" to create a 48" barbell), and 30 lbs worth of weight plates.

I would have bought something that came with more weights, but 1) I already have some weights, and wanted to buy something compatible, and 2) If I had bought something with more weights, I wouldn't have been able to carry it home (The store's about four blocks from my apartment).

The barbell has a capacity of 120 lbs, and when I got home, I had a little "buyer's remorse", thinking that wasn't exactly a lot of weight for a big guy like myself. But then I screwed the dumbbells into the center bar, put 50 lbs on it�the barbell by itself, with the weight clamps, weighs about 15 lbs�and tentatively lifted it up and down ten times.

I was able to do it, at no time feeling in danger of "stroking out" or anything like that, but it was also by no means "effortless" (Starting this entry, I debated not admitting that I found bench-pressing 50 lbs�65 lbs, counting the barbell-- "by no means effortless". Then I thought "Who cares if they know I'm a wimp?"). So I think 120 lbs is going to be just fine to start with. If I stick with it, and graduate to "Big Boy Weights", I can trade up at that time�There is, after all, a sporting goods store just four blocks away.

(I wouldn't want to be doing 300-lb bench presses at home with no "spotter" anyway. That's kind of dangerous. And the point of doing this is not to get big and bulky, so much as it is to become leaner and more defined, so less weight/more reps is really the way I want to go.)

Lifted some weights up and down a little while ago.

I can see now this will take some "fine tuning", so that I get an actual workout, while at the same time not hurting myself.

Honestly? I'm kind of afraid. I don't want to hurt myself physically, but I'm also afraid I'm going to let myself down again, that I'll peter out before I really get started.

It's kind of what I do, after all.

I procrastinated on putting the weight bench together, in part, because I'm afraid of the frustration of "putting things together". But I was also holding off because once the bench was a bench, then I'd have to do something about it).

But I really can't afford to "peter out" this time. I'm tired and overweight, and feeling old before my time.

And if I were just going to be a middle aged loser with a nowhere job and a nowhere life, with nothing going on and no particular dreams, that'd be one thing, but I'm a man on a mission. I've got to start acting like I really get that, and plan my life accordingly.

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