I'm ecstatic today. I cancelled my cable last night and am saving over $200/mo. It only took an hour and fifteen minutes, that after spending half an hour on the phone with the ortho's office trying to get an appointment for another injection in my knee. I can't get in until Oct. 25 and then he will have to send the script to the insurance to see if they will pay, and if they will, he can order the shot. I won't be getting that any time soon, maybe before Thanksgiving if I am lucky. So the phone business took up much of the afternoon. Still--I'm cable-free! I immediately started my month free trial with both Apple TV and YouTube. I'm not sure if I will keep Apple TV, but YouTube definitely. It took me a looooong time to set it up as all my devices were not synched, so when I made the purchase, it was only for my computers. After wrangling like the digital cowboy I am, however, I got everything set up.
And that is what I did last night--YouTubed!
"OK, Boomer."
Fuck you. Some of the best stuff on tv is on YouTube. You just don't know how to use it right. All your recs are for Joe Rogan and his ilk because. . . you're a moron. Did you know that? My algorithms are set for smart stuff. And the occasional female pole vaulter. O.K. Sometimes I'm vapid, too.
My Day 1 of fat reduction went well. I walked three miles before the gym. Then gym. I am back on my milk diet. I haven't done this for years, but it works. I drink half a gallon of low fat milk during the day. 800 calories, 64 grams of protein. Then at night, I have a meal. If I keep the alcohol consumption to a minimum. . . .
In the evening, I walked another couple miles. Keep moving.
I'm feeling slim already. Or I would if I hadn't wrecked my knee again trying to run the hills. I guess I thought I would be rewarded for being a good boy, but such is not the way of the universe. And so.
After a dinner of a sliced avocado, then leftover pork and beans, I did my usual in the fading light. Just one and a little cheroot. I felt absolutely marvelous.
At the gym, I saw a fellow who has not been in for months. He went to the university the same years I was there and graduated the same year. We didn't know one another, but we knew some of the same people. He was a starting guard on the football team and played in the NFL for the 49ers. When he came into the gym the first time, everyone thought him a bit of a freak. He smiled at me and said hello and asked me, "Is that your natural hair color?"
"It sure is," I laughed.
Yesterday when he came in, he had traded in his gray hair to become a bleached blonde.
"Holy shit, G--you did it!"
I am quite the influencer.
"Are you still with your wife," I asked him. He had told me of there troubles months ago.
"No. I moved into the condo at the beach. She's in the house."
He's another gymroid with money.
"Well. . . that was my first guess. My second was that you fell off the wagon."
"No. . . no. . . I'm still sober. I go to the gym and to my meetings and I meditate and pray and write every day."
He's in A.A. And he is trying to write a book. He's kooky as they come, but/so I like him.
"I need to quit drinking. I'm getting too fat to walk."
"Do you want to come to a meeting?"
"What? No! I don't have an addictive personality. I quit all the time. It doesn't interfere with my life. I don't have a problem like you guys do."
I looked at him for a minute and laughed.
"I'll bet you never heard anyone say anything like that in a meeting."
He was a little slow on the uptake, but then he got it and began to chuckle.
"Ha. No. Nothing like that."
I was being funny but serious, too. He was a guy who kept a bottle at the office and started drinking at lunch time. And that continued through the evening. And then, when he'd wake up during the night, he would get up and have a couple. It was wrecking his life. Now. . . he has given his life over to God and the A.A. brethren.
Sort of. I could smell marijuana.
"Did you smoke before you came in the gym?"
"It helps me with my pain," he said. I'm not sure this is legitimate A.A. stuff, but I didn't say that. Addicts are addicts one way or another.
If you remember the photo from two posts ago, you'll see that I once had short hair. Sitting with my mother, I said that I thought about cutting my hair like that again.
"Your hair isn't as thick now. You had a lot of hair then."
Holy shit. Then I remembered Sky commenting on the pic.
"Volume!"
I grow old, I grow old.
Shall I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled?
The photo at the top of the post was something I tried to do yesterday. When the Polaroid film was running out, I switched to a Fuji instant peel apart film. It was vibrant and more defined. It looked great. But the process I was using with the Polaroid film wouldn't work the same way. This photo is from the Fuji film. It has a funky look, but it is not quite the same as the Polaroids. I have a bunch of them, though, and I'll keep working on them.
I asked Sky yesterday something akin to "What is love?" I've been wondering about how other people experience it. It can't be the same for everyone. The whole concept has become hazy for me. It seems that most songs are about love or love lost or love not found, so I have to think it is something. But unlike intelligence, for instance, it can't be measured. It is outside the realm of science. We have left it to the philosophers and the therapists to categorize it. But how can it fade? How does one become traitorous after love?
I don't know the answers to any of it, but I think I've learned one thing. If you don't like your lover's friends, there is trouble ahead. I have come to think of this as the litmus test. But I'll have more on this in the future.
The music was playing, the night was so lovely. . . I was feeling something of my old self, ready for adventure. . . free. Then this song came on. WTF? I was trying not to consume alcohol calories, so. . . I pulled out the jar of ganja my buddy grew in Vermont. I never touch it. Rarely. The jar is still full. I packed the pipe.
Maybe I need a meeting. Ha!!!
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