one world, one life
Watched a performance of the musical Rent last night with Lacey at the Smith Center. It’s not my kinda music but damned if it doesn’t pack an emotional punch! Life is messy and hard, and we need to find its beauty where we can.
I haven’t been to jiu jitsu in months (jobless and can’t justify the expense of gym fees and travel), but it’s still very much on my mind. This morning, I dreamt that I had a bully in a rear naked choke. I went to put my hooks in and ended up IRL kneeing Lacey in the butt. ?
Just watched the super blue moon lunar eclipse with the family from our back porch, freezing in our pajamas. Also watched a polar orbiting satellite pass through the bowl of the Big Dipper and near the north star in the sky, something I don’t think I’ve seen before.
I’m rereading 1984 by George Orwell for the first time since high school. So far, it’s even better than I remember. That’s probably because, like so many other things, I have more experiences to draw on now. Already I see echoes of the “mutability of the past” in the current US administration’s adversarial relationship to the facts.
I’m just going to say it. This talk we’re beginning to hear from Trump and his surrogates about a Muslim registry and internment camps is dangerously un-American horseshit. It’s historically ignorant, it’s hateful, and we must put a stop to it. We’ve been here before. We know where this leads.
As a non-believer, I disagree deeply with the religion of Islam. But if, despite all our efforts, the registry ever becomes reality, I will register myself and stand with my fellow citizens. The freedom of religion is one of our most sacred American principles, but it will die if we don’t protect it.
Almost every morning for the past five years or so, I’ve stumbled out of bed, stepped on a scale, and noted the result in a spreadsheet. It’s mildly interesting to look back over the ups and downs.
I started out skinnyfat. After a visit with a stern nurse practitioner, thinking about my wife and kids who depend on me, I decided to get my health in order. The first 3 kg I lost were easy. I maintained my new lighter weight for almost two years. Then I dabbled with gaining muscle, but I went too fast and wasn’t doing the right kind of training, so I gained mostly body fat. I decided to lose the fat and got back down to 60 kg. Since then, I’ve brought my weight back up to about 65 kg and am maintaining it there.
I’m satisfied with my current weight. I have more muscle than when I started, and while I’m no underwear model, I like what I see in the mirror.
It might seem obsessive and unhealthy to track my weight every day. I could see where it could lead someone down the path to an eating disorder, but it has had the opposite effect on me. Looking at my chart causes a rather zen state of mind, something like what happens to astronauts looking down on the Earth from above.
The weight comes and goes. I decide when. The number on the scale doesn’t change who I am.
I just finished seveneves by Neal Stephenson, the first work of fiction I’ve read in quite a while. It was fun riding along with the author as he geeked out about orbital mechanics, robotics, and generic engineering in a story about the death of civilization and the interplay of the human will to survive and our imperative to compete. What’s not to like about a novel whose overture is the disintegration of the Moon?