Out of the Ordinary

Clean Shaven with Rudy
Originally uploaded by CaseWriter21

Some quick updates:

• I shaved my beard. Why? I was bored. I wanted to remember what I looked like clean-shaven. I think I look pretty cute - from the front anyway. Profile views are a bevy of double chins, but what can ya do.
• I had excruciating hiccups the other day. After a few minutes of torture, I decided to try my standard remedy: drinking water upside down. This entails holding a cup or bottle of water in my hand, bending forward at the waist and placing my mouth on the opposite side of the cup, and drinking the water by tilting my head forward. Normally this works like a charm. This time, it succeeded in getting rid of my hiccups, but there was an unexpected hiccup: I GOT WATER INSIDE MY HEAD. Yes, I'm serious. It seemed to go through an opening up by my sinuses, and ended up in the post-nasal-drip area. And it wouldn't leave. Whenever I shook my head, I heard sloshing, like the ocean. (Okay, that last part isn't true, but my head did feel oddly filled with liquid.) That night, it was very difficult to fall asleep, and in the morning, I awoke with a bad sore throat from where the water had irritated me. Luckily, things are starting to get better now as the water -- mercifully -- is draining away somewhere. But yesterday, I didn't know if the water would ever go away, so to urge it along, I purchased a...
• Neti Pot! See Wikipedia for details. I had been terrified of trying this thing ever since I first learned about it from a hippie heath store worker friend last year. But I finally took the plunge and did it. And ya know what? I didn't accidentally waterboard myself! VIDEO COMING SOON. Hahahaha, that will gross so many people out.

Addendum: My bird picks his nose.

Re-Introducing Matt's Fitness Blog!

Many of my visitors are not aware of the row of links of the very top of the page. I encourage you to peruse them at your leisure. There, you will find links to basically all of the videos that I have put up, either on Google or YouTube. You will find thousands of pictures going back several years. You will find an outdated page of music links -- which will be updated soon. You will find an "about me" section, which links to my Wikipedia biography. And, the newest edition to the list, "fitness," which I would like to discuss right now.

Fitness has been important to me for several years. I was a chunky youth but in high school my body grew, and I flattened out. When I graduated from high school, I weighed around 166 pounds. Unfortunately, college was not friendly to my waist line. Meal plans included dessert, and seconds were fair game. After the first few years of college, I had gained 40 pounds. Yes, my "freshman 15" did not end after the first year of college.

The Freshman 15 would have continued indefinitely were it not for high school chum Ian. Ian, a fatty by no one's definition, had taken it upon himself to participate in a "body for life" challenge. After losing a bit of weight, becoming even skinnier, Ian did me a favor and sent me an Amazon link to the book. After a couple of failed tries, I successfully lost about 25 pounds in a three-month period.

That was six years ago. Since that time, I have longed to get back to my svelte look of yesteryear. The past several years have been an uphill battle, as the graph shows... but recently I have been making some gains. Er, losses. :-) For several years, I regularly documented my exercise and fitness progress in a sister blog, "primal eloquence". I told few people about this blog, because weight loss is a fairly personal journey. For several years, I regularly documented my exercise and fitness progress in a sister blog, "primal eloquence" I told few people about this blog, because weight loss is a fairly personal journey. But every now and then, when I would get on a fitness kick, I would update it regularly and remind my closest friends to visit every now and then for an inspirational story or a tale of despair - whichever feeling was more prevalent on that date.

Well, I am at it again. My exercise tendencies have resurfaced, and I am eager to share my before and after pictures with the world yet again. :-) It is with that long introduction that I had formally and officially introduce the newest link at the top of the page. Feel free to visit it -- or ignore it -- at your leisure.

How many pizzas does it take to fill my existential void?

Every now and then something I do reminds me that I am, without a doubt, the biggest fatty on the planet. That "something I do "is almost always binge eating. It happens when I don't have a lot of structure, and I wander through the day, with no routine to guide me, and I am bored, and my friends are out of town, and I have nothing to do, and before I know it, I have eaten an entire medium meat lovers pizza.

The extremely bad part is that yesterday I did essentially the same thing. It wasn't meat lovers, but it was half ground beef and have pepperoni, and that makes me a whole pig.

Today wasn't entirely lost. I did go to the gym earlier today, and work my muscles almost to failure... and I hardly ate anything else the rest of the day. Ultimately, though, that is the problem. When I go the entire day with out eating every two or three hours, like I am supposed to, like body for life tells me to, then I have pretty much guaranteed that I will lose the eating war for the day. My body, not having received nourishment for eight or 10 hours, will rebel. "I need a pizza! " It will tell me. Why do you needed ate pizza, I will ask. "Because I am bored and I want a pizza!" Okay, body, you win.

The really you really bad part is that I was not even hungry. That's right to, I ate an entire meat lovers pizza with out any appetite. My appetite was in a state of non existence. And when I started eating the pizza, I wasn't hungry, but I wasn't full; when I finished eating the pizza, I wasn't hungry, but I wasn't full either. I consumed at least 2000 calories of fat-laden goodness, and my appetite level did not change: it was simply there, ever present, like the wind.

The only way to prevent myself from going on destructive rampages like this is to have a plan. And not just have a plan, but stick to it too. It would not have been hard today. Had I planned things out before hand, I would have known that I would have several free hours, and I would have planned my meals accordingly. Instead, though, I simply woke up around 10:00a.m., spent a couple of hours in front of the computer, had a few diet pink lemonades, headed off to Starbucks, where I had an iced chai tea... and then ate nothing for the next several hours. And had no plans, for friends or for meals. I had nothing to do. I wasn't even hungry. And yet, I decided to call pizza hut. Why? For the love God, why?!

My sister, Katherine, says that she also goes on these kinds of destructive binges. I think it probably runs in our family. It probably runs in a lot of families. Katherine says it means that I am missing something. I am eating to fill a void. Now, I don't want to give a lot of credence to Dr. Phil, but I think Katherine might be onto something. My best friends are all out of town, it seems indefinitely. I am currently between full-time jobs. I have nothing to do. I am wandering. There is a void. There is a void and I am filling it with pizza. admittedly, it is very tasty pizza, don't get me wrong. But I wonder, how much pizza it does it take to fill a big, giant hole? A big giant existential hole.

Hmmm...... I really don't know why I bare my soul like this on the Internet. It has gotten me into trouble before. It is this damn voice recognition software. I spent a billion dollars on it, and I am determined to get my money's worth. so you, dear reader, get to read three exciting blog entries in one day. And I, dear blogger, get to reveal my innermost thoughts, all because I am in love with the sound of my own voice and can't stop speaking.

Well, enjoy it while it lasts!