Tag: Life

Easter Weekend?

Easter is meaningless for me now. There was that one year when I was a kid when the Easter Bunny included two Star Wars action figures in my Easter Basket. Damn if that wasn’t like getting a second xmas that year. What does it mean though? It means that when I was a kid my family was catholic but today I am nothing. When it comes to religion, I don’t. None. That’s all. I didn’t even realize this weekend was Easter until about a week ago when my step daughter mentioned she was going to her Aunt’s house for Easter dinner. My response was more or less, “what?”

My in-laws are coming over tomorrow for Easter dinner one day early. We have tickets to see Throwing Muses at the Paradise in Boston tomorrow night as well, but my wife may not be able to go. We’ll see.

Was there a point to this post? I don’t think so. I had a super stressful moment this morning at work. No spoilers, but I had to request a staff member’s emergency contact. I didn’t end up needing it as the issue resolved itself before I got a response to the request, but it was close. I hope to never have to do that again.

In other news, it’s opening day at Fenway Park today. I had meetings scheduled all afternoon and thought I wouldn’t be able to listen to the game, but most of them have been postponed so I’ll be able to tune in to some of the game. That’s a nice little bonus. Granted the Red Sox are 1–5 on the young season. They won their opening game and have lost every game since. Here’s hoping some home cookin’ will straighten this mess out before it gets too awful.

I really thought I had a point to this post but I’ve lost it and forgotten it and now I’ll just leave you with a cat.

DSC_5749

Traffic is Funny

Here’s an example of why traffic in greater Boston is funny. I don’t mean funny as in hahaha, I mean funny as in I am so mad I want to claw my eyes out.

I drove about 70 miles to get to work today. It was pouring rain the whole way. It was also seriously foggy out. The fog plus the rain plus the spray coming off of everyone’s tires meant that visibility was only slightly better than zero. For almost the entire drive I was up around 70-75 miles per hour. I made excellent time.

Yesterday it was gloomy out but other than a little drizzle at the tail end of the drive it was dry. No precipitation, no fog to speak of, no road spray. It had rained the day before though. How did I do for time? There were pockets of gridlock everywhere. The drive took 30 minutes longer than it took today.

Rain today = no traffic jams.
No rain today but rain yesterday = huge traffic jams.

See what I mean about “funny”?

Anyway, here’s a picture of a guitar to try to guilt myself into playing before work tomorrow, when I will thankfully be working from home again.

102/365

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, Massachusetts! Happy Thanksgiving to the rest of New England too.

Our family Thanksgiving is actually going to happen on Saturday. The kids are at their dad’s today so we’re punting to the weekend in order to have everyone together.

For today though, Jen and I are going to have a mini Thanksgiving on our own. We found the tiniest turkey in the world and it’s going into the oven shortly.

When we decided to not have anything big today I had thrown out the possibility of me and my love going to New York to see the Macy’s parade in person. Clearly we didn’t go, but we’re watching the parade on TV and… well… thank goodness we didn’t go. It’s pouring rain in New York and everyone looks drenched and frozen and miserable. Bullet Dodged.

So, my New England neighbors, enjoy your turkey and stuffing and have an extra helping for me!

Body Image Thoughts

This is going to be a gastric bypass surgery post. If you don’t want to read about how fat I was, then now is the time to bail out. I promise I won’t be mad. Hell, I’m tired of thinking about how fat I was.

Okay. Still here?

It’s been 2.5 years since I had the surgery. I’m still down something like 210-220 pounds over that time. I still think the whole experience has been nothing short of miraculous.

But…

Over the last couple of weeks I have been having moments of confusion. I walk past a glass door and see my reflection and I feel totally weirded out. That’s not me that I see reflected in the glass. I am a 450 pound behemoth, not this miniaturized freak I see in the glass.

I look down at the floor in front of me and I see my shoes looking back up at me. That’s not me. If it were me I would see my gut protruding out so far that it completely blocks my view of my feet. Shoes? What shoes?

I look at myself in the mirror and see this weird, alien face with loose skin hanging off his neck staring back at him. I don’t see me. I don’t see the fat face with the skin stretched smooth over the cheeks that are so puffed up I look like Dizzy Gillespie wailing over some Bb dominant 7 chord.

What the hell, Robert? It’s been 2.5 years. You have looked like this for a long time now. Surgery was 2.5 years ago, but you hit the 200 pound lost point over 1.5 years ago. Why aren’t you used to being this new you yet? What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you accept the new reality?

I don’t know. I had over 30 years of being a grossly overweight adult. I had just a few years of being 400+ pounds, but that seems to have been long enough to make it permanent in my tiny little brain. I think the real question here is, why now? It’s been a long time since I felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me when I saw my reflection. It’s been a long time since I held up the clothes that I am wearing now to those that I wore before the surgery. Why am I weirded out now when I wasn’t a month or two ago?

Is it a holidays thing? Does the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner feast and the knowledge that I won’t be able to participate like I used to somehow trigger some weird body image thing? Is that going to happen every year? Am I somehow, perversely nostalgic for the time when I was so heavy that I couldn’t go for a 100 yard walk without feeling like my heart and my lungs were going to literally explode in my chest? That better not be the case because that sort of thing was so soul crushing that part of me just wanted to die to get it over with. No way am I thinking back fondly to that. At least not consciously. But sub-consciously? Maybe? Damn, I hope not.

What is it about November 2024 that has me in such a weird body image frame of mind? I don’t get it. Maybe I should walk past glass doors and see myself reflected back more often so that I just get over it and get used to the new normal. The new normal is better in every single way. 99.999% of the time I feel that and I literally rejoice in it (seriously), but those other weird surprise moments… that 0.001% of the time… it’s like dude, what the hell is wrong with you?