I never really think about my past weight loss. Right now, I am focused on the last 16 left to lose. I never really allow myself to go "Wow, this is actually working."

Part of that is why it does work, I think.

Anyway, I just had to take a new photo for a project, and decided to compare it to the picture I use here.

The picture that has been on this blog since I went to Thailand way back when is on the left. The new one from last night is on the right. I guess this diet thing is working.

So, I’m listening to the radio just now and they report that a family or somesuch in Cleveland was burned to death in a fire, and they do not suspect it to be arson. And, my first thought is… why should I be hearing about people dying in Cleveland? I mean, if someone has a fatal car crash here during the morning commute, they only mention how long it should be until that lane opens up again and traffic starts moving, but somehow this Cleveland fire makes its way to me? Very strange. I recently read that in the early 70s, the ratio of "bad" news stories to "good" news stories was 3 to 1, and now, it is 18 to 1. (Sorry, no citation, I read it in a magazine that I took to an amusement park, and pitched into the trash once I had finished the articles).

Lately, I have been having food issues. Well, it’s mainly been eating too much as some weird preventative measure, that somehow spirals out of control.

Examples:

On Friday, I went to Marine World, the amusement park. Of course, the food they serve at the park is trashy, greasy, unhealthy, and expensive. Had I tried to eat vegan there, it would have been a $7 garden salad, $8 fruit salad, $3.50 roasted ear of corn, and $3.25 waters. So, I smuggle food in my cargo pants and put it in my backpack once I’m through the bag check. There is NO security guard about to ask me if I am smuggling a vegan breakfast burrito from Whole Foods Market in my pocket, since well, what if I wasn’t?!

So, I eat breakfast before going to the park, and into the park I smuggle: a vegan breakfast burrito, a vegan cajun red rice and beans wrap, and an apple. I buy a roasted ear of corn and water on site.

After going to the park, I plan to go to a friend’s going away party, which will have Cajun-themed food which were cited as being "unhealthy and unhealthily good," so once again, it is about not going to the party hungry. So, directly from the park, I take the train to a vegan restaurant a few blocks from my apartment, and get vietnamese spring rolls (not the fried ones, the cool rice paper ones), red curry with brown rice, grilled veggies, and tofu (which is like WAY too much food, but too, too good, so I finish it). I need a green pepper for a recipe I am making tomorrow, so I go next door to the health food place, and grab the pepper, but also spy the frozen foods, and see a Soy Dream Ice Cream sandwich.

I figure I am going to a party where there is going to be sweets and stuff, so it would probably be better to get something sweet in me. So, I eat the sandwich on my walk home.

Once home, it is 90 minutes until I am going to the party, so I’m chilling out online or whatever, grab a bath to wash the park off of me, etc. ,etc. Then, as I’m leaving, I gauge my hunger. I’m not remotely hungry, but figure I will be at the party for a few hours, so I have a bowl of cereal with raisins?! then, since I had deliberated between having the shredded wheat or the high fiber cereal as that snack, had a half a bowl with some more raisins, of the one I didn’t just have a full bowl of. And then i went to the party…

Now, if you total up what i consumed in one day, it is like WAY too much food! If I had stayed home, I would have eaten like half as much. but the surreal part is that all of this extra consumption was done in the name of making sure I didn’t eat the wrong things?! Talk about messed up…

The good thing is that I am incredibly lame. So, even when I overeat, I overeat healthy, organic vegan foods.

But this has been happening lately, and I think it is due to my schedule being far, far, far too open. It has gotten to the point where before I go to bed, I already mentally decided what I’m having fo breakfast the next morning. Usually it hinges on the fruit. If I have fresh blueberries, then it will be shredded wheat; bananas are high fiber cereal (it’s actual name, btw), and strawberries could mean GoLean or Shredded Wheat.

Basically, my schedule is free except I know I’m going to be having meals, so WAY too much emphasis is going on them.

Today, it happened again. I was going to the Chuck Palahniuk book reading/signing, and he always draws a huge crowd. The problem was that the event was at 7, but I was going at 5. I normally eat at like 5:30 or 6, and his event will run until 8:30 or 9 p.m., which is far too late for me to wait for dinner.

So, mid-afternoon, I have some Thai green beans. At like 4 p.m., I had some cooked corn with salsa, and then right before leaving the apartment, another freaking bowl of cereal. Once again, overeating in the name of preventing hunge and making sure I don’t make the wrong choices. But, and here is the kicker, the entire plan was to have veggie fajitas across the street from the bookstore AFTER the event. Once again, when you total it up, it is way too much food.

Clearly this is something that needs to be remedied. In large part, it is tied in with my schedule. I really have NOTHING else to do right now. I can’t look for work until after Texas, I go to Texas in two weeks, just finished up an essay, so… it’s kind of just watching random things, lounging around, reading… so, in my idleness, I overthink things.

Weird…

Lots of e-mails about the last post. Well, to be fair, they were e-mail replies as I sent it out to a core group of people…

Anyway, lots of interesting feedback.

One person questioned whether anchors were necessary at all.

Another went for easy mental permutation for me by speaking in novelwriting metaphor: "Your character can’t just move without motivation! Develop this! These decisions will be prompted by plot developments."

And yet another said that the anchor is me, and that all decisions do not lack an anchor, rather all my thoughts are rolling around within the anchor. That e-mail ended with a great quote from Kafka: "You don’t need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, simply wait. Don’t even wait. Be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you. To be unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

So, thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts and wisdom on that last entry.

I’m in a different place now, actually. All of that stuff is still there, but I don’t feel as rootless as I did when I wrote it.

I think there was this artificially constructed chasm between where I am right now  and other goals I had on the horizon. For example, after losing eight more pounds, I was going to start doing some upper body training in preparation for yoga. After 18 pounds, I was going to start taking yoga. Somewhere in the middle there, I was going to get an overdue physical exam. Somehow all of these future plans got attached needlessly to arbitrary weight goals.

So, I abandoned all of those plans. I went to yoga last week. I am having blood drawn tomorrow with a physical scheduled for two weeks later, which will include the results of the blood, so I will get to know my cholesterol levels and all that good stuff. I am hoping for cholesterol in the double digits, but we’ll see if I can achieve it.

Also did a little shopping, which is not in the budget, but I have to get some new clothes for the new body so… budget be damned!

This part is still strange. I am buying clothes that are appropriate for my physical body, but which are not yet believed by my mental image of myself. This week, my order from the Gap.com arrived and there was some underwear in Medium, Shirts in L, and (had they not Canceled them), pants in 32 inches. All of this stuff fits. But looking at it, and attempting to put it on my body always has a pang of disbelief. These small pants in my hands will not fit on my body… until, of course, they do.

As part of that process… well, doing hatha yoga is part of that process, as well, you know… getting the mind and body connected through poses and meditation in unison… but as ANOTHER part of that process, I went to an author event last week by Byron Katie. Her first book, Loving What Is, had been recommended to me when I was attending a gay buddhist sangha over the summer. I had bookmarked her site, looked around it every so often, but largely forgot about it.

So, anyway, her new book about relationships came out "I Need Your Love - Is That True?" (Is that True? is one of the four main questions you ask as part of her methodology). Anyway, I ordered the book through Amazon in advance of hearing about the event. I figure I’ll check her out. When I flip through the book, it is very relationshippy, whereas her first book, Loving What Is, seems to be more about working on yourself.

In advance of her arriving at her event, I purchase the first book for actual retail cost *shudder*, as it seems to be more appropriate for me right now. How to combine my mental image and physical reality into one happy thing is definitely a worthwhile pursuit. And she certainly delivers. She was a delightful presence at her event. She had that unquestioning joy and calm about her that makes you immediately say, If her methodology gets you to that place, bring it on!

I spoke with her briefly as she signed my book, she held my hand as I spoke, called me sweetheart, and then signed both books. It is one of those deceptively simply books, though. The kind where you’re like Do All These Buddhisty Self-Help Books Have To Sound Like Eight Year Olds Wrote Them?! I’m fine thinking I’m deluding myself, but I’d like to think the way out from where I am is a bit more complex than THIS! But, maybe, it isn’t. Enjoying the book so far, so we’ll see.

I started the hatha yoga to further the mind-body connection. The goal is still ashtanga yoga, and I did e-mail the yoga studio Jamey recommended to me way back in Thailand, asking their advice on how to build from where I am now (nowhere) to an Ashtanga practice, so that I follow some sort of path. Probably keep doing Hatha for a while. I applied to do a work exchange at that yoga studio, so if that happens, I will donate time for free classes.

In July, I will begin looking for a new job. But, not a sucky corporate job. Trying to avoid those. Want a very service industry job. Waiter, bartender, etc. The goal is to find the opposite of writing. So, balance the isolated, mental, passive writing energies with the social, physical, active job, so that I’m not earning my money in the same way I chase my joy. That’s already proven not to work for me with Macromedia, so… let’s try something new. The sad part is that I could make so much more money doing short-term corporate nonsense, but I need to keep my soul for now.

Just taking all these steps has made me feel more grounded across the board. I think I had too many things "on hold," so freeing them up was definitely the right idea.

I’m really adrift lately.

A lot of time these days is spent in my head. Most of it wondering about the big questions. Of primary importance is whether I should remain in San Francisco.

It keeps rising to the surface, moreso now because I said I wasn’t going to give this any thought until after the book was finished, and that will happen this summer. So, it is time.

The thing is… there is no compelling reason to move. It’s just that I can. The same lack of mortgage, boyfriend, career, car, and responsibility that allowed me to goad my employer into firing me presents ongoing opportunities.

I am not anchored here by anything more than friendships, few of which are deep enough to merit consideration.

The big picture is, as my unemployment is about to come to an end, it is expensive to live here. So, should I?

And, if not here, where?

The list usually includes the following culprits:

Portland, exclusively picked so I could study writing weekly with Tom Spanbauer. Not that Portland isn’t delightful. It is a great place to live, and the cheaest metropolitan area on the West Coast. It also satisfies the gay/vegan/car requirements, in that I can meet others, eat out at vegan places, and not need a car. I did enjoy the city, just not sure if it is right for me.

North Bay, north of San Francisco things do get cheaper. But then you have to add the car into the mix. Because once you get too far north, it all goes to hell for public transport. One thing that caught my attention, and honestly, had I seen this a few months earlier, I might have not booked my huge Texas trip and just moved north. But Sparks, the amazing vegan restaurant in Guerneville (which is moving, from what I understand) has a six-month chef training course. I assume it would pay, lest it just be endentured servitude on their busiest nights for no pay. It certain intrigued the hell out of me. Part of my plan moving forward is about the next wave of jobs (more on that later).

Back east? Always an option, because I do have a lot of family and friends there. Not that I would return to Wilkes-Barre or anything that crazy, but you know, Philly or something could be nice. I do wonder if I would want to be so urban if I were partnered. Would it matter as much? Once you get gay crossed off the list with a boyfriend, and consider that I cook all my own food most of the time anyway, it seems irrelevant whether you are in the ‘burbs. At least in theory, it does.

New York City is always on the list. Not that it would make sense for the reasons I am thinking of moving anyway. I mean, I would get a smaller place, in a busier, crazier city. But there is always a draw there. Something about it always calls out. I tend to think that if my book does well enough for me to upgrade apartments, I may upgrade coasts as well and just try a NYC run.

Then there are the more out-there ideas. Like why not just drift around Europe or Asia doing odd jobs, learning new languages and cultures, writing, and exposing myself to more of the world? Why focus on American metropolitan areas when there are places like Paris, Athens, Amsterdam, Rome, Tuscany, Prague, Thailand, India, and just so much else out there?

When you break it down, I basically see family like twice a year. Once in Texas, once in Pennsylvania (most years). This year, my parents are coming to San Francisco for a bit as well. And I am the one traveling to their locations. So, what difference does it make whether I fly to Dallas from San Francisco or Paris? Not to mention, with broadband Internet and services like Skype, we could talk for free over our computers easily enough (only an issue if I went to Asia and went a bit more rural where Internet connections are not as cheap).

The issue is the abundance of options. Phildelphia or something along those lines has the most significant potential to change things, because i would see more friends and family on a regular basis. But hell, something like giving people a free place to crash in Tuscany seems like I would be seeing a lot more people I know from across the US on a regular basis anyway. just for a week at a time and then they fly back home.

It does seem strange to feel so… rootless.

Now, to be sure, there are people who can make a valid point that I have yet to really experience San Francisco. Are there entire scenes, community of artists, gay happenings, and any other specialized pocket of interest that I have yet to take in? Of course. But, I think that is somewhat short-sighted, as I have experienced MY San Francisco. It will always offer more opportunities, more layers, more scenes, and more of everything, but that is true of any major city. There are things I could shut down the computer and run to right now if I wanted. There are concerts, and theater, and bars, and sex and whatever else happening all around me every day. I nearly went to the beach today until I saw that the coast winds for today and tomorrow, desptie the high temperatures were like 20-30 miles per hour, which seems more like a sandstorm than a relaxing afternoon.

And, clearly, with the weight loss, San Francisco will also change for me on the horizon. There will be more opportunities to date and all of that. And if I want to make new friends, then that can happen as well.

The other upside is that I have really reduced my footprint in recent years. I think all of the clothes that I currently wear could fit without trouble in my suitcases. Every piece of clothing! Of course, this is largely due to the weight loss, since I toss something as soon as I am in a smaller size and don’t own much yet in my current sizes. But still… I own more books than garments at present.

It almost seems like I should be subletting my place as a furnished apartment and exploring other places more with that freedom. I honestly can’t wait to find out what this book will pay me just so I have one less "unknown" hanging out ahead of me, just like knowing my unemployment will end in like a month brings clarity to my finances, too.

It is mainly a matter of arranging priorities, on a very confusing grid. I mean, how can I rule out going to Europe based on my family being "here," if I don’t live where my immediate family lives here anyway? Paris to Philadelphia is a $400 flight for 8 hours, as opposed to a $250 flight for 6.5 hours from San Francisco. So, it is a $150, 90 minute difference from where I am now. Clearly I don’t have to stay here just so my family can talk to me for five cents a minute. You can’t make decisions based on that.

So, what makes the decision? I mainly moved here because it was a gay mecca and the software industry interested me. Again, pretty flimsy evidence for making life decisions. Not that I regret it, but it is rather incredulous in retrospect. My instinct now is to wonder why I didn’t just move to NYC at that time, that would have landed me in gay mecca and publishing industry.

Mainly just thinking out loud here. There is a good chance I will be in San Francisco in ten years time. But, please, not in this apartment at least…

And then, just when you think, wow, that’s a lot of thinking and options, it is only WHERE I will live. There is also a larger picture thing as to WHAT I intend to do anymore.

I am trying to avoid writing professionally. Novels and essays are fine, obviously, but I really want to avoid writing in corporate settings. It is already rather established that my fiction writing can’t co-exist well with writing as a day job as well.

But, the big picture there is that I have been professionally paid to write now for 18 years. 18 out of 36. I’m sure that math is faulty, but it’s damn close to half of my life either way.

So, not only do I not know what I where i want to be, but what I want to do wherever I live is also up for grabs.

Sure, the answer is that I can hope the book takes off, or I marry up, but neither is likely to happen. I know people dislike when I say such things, as it sounds pessimistic, just like when I said I likely wouldn’t get the stegner fellowship. I’m not saying i don’t believe in myself. I’m just a realist. If 1200 people apply for 10 openings, you are more likely to be in the group of 1190 than the 10. That is all. I think the book is on a perfect track to being whatever it will be, but it is more likely to not make me a millionaire. If it does, fabulous. But it likely won’t.

Part of me is trying to piece together how to cobble a living together out of just doing new things all the time. Like the chance to learn to be a vegan chef for six months is a good example. Just a great opportunity to expand my field of vision, not bleed out my savings, and expose me to a whole new world of career, people, location, etc. And, on some level, it helps the uber-goal of writing as well, opening up new avenues for that to go.

So, that’s what’s been turning around in my head the past few days/weeks/months. Nothing new, just revisiting old themes really.

The real question might be why I am lacking one good anchor to which I can tie the other things.

Not much going on lately. I’ve been very lazy, not doing much but cooking, working out, reading, and sleeping… I have interest in going out and doing more things but nothing really pulling me out to do it. That said, I am rather contented with it all. It isn’t a depression or anxiety or anything that could be inferred by my activities or lack thereof.

Cooked like three new dishes this week, just to spark some interest in food and get me out of my recipe rut. Invented a new dish this afternoon (if you call putting a bunch of latin cuisine staples and spices in a pot and stirring an invention) that was rather tasty and will have to join the repertoire. Been avoiding soy this week, just because I felt I was eating too much lately, so a lot more grains and veggies. Liking it so far. Only soy exception is meatless meatballs with my spaghetti, which really is the only way I enjoy pasta. (Coincidentally, a few days after I started this, Dr. McDougall issued his monthly newsletter, which suggested people limit their soy intake, so I guess I’m ahead of the curve.)

On the book front, I am editing the book-within-a-book and then won’t look at the whole she-bang until after Pride. Technically, I will be ready (per the Stephen King six week rule) in mid-June, but I will be in Texas at that point and returning home a few days before gay pride, so basically the major book merge and editing will begin in earnest as soon as pride ends.

Ordered some new clothes from gap.com (as my credit card rewards program earned me a gift card), so will be nice to get more stuff in my new sizes. Still unsure how to lose weight mentally, or if that is just a case of time reinforcing physical reality.

Hopefully getting a Thai massage this week, which has been the planned reward for being under-200 pounds. Makes more sense than celebrating with, say, german chocolate cake.

Starting an apartment-improvement project this week, so that will take some time and energy. Been a while since I’ve done such a thing, though, so will be interesting to get into that groove again.

I think I’m becoming a fitness nut (or just a nut). In two weeks, there is the Bay to Breakers race/walk here and I have done it in the past. But this year, since I only walk and not run, it doesn’t seem like it is enough of a workout (despite it being like 9 miles or something), so I am debating either skipping it altogether or going to the gym to do my real workout beforehand. If I don’t sweat, I don’t seem to count it as exercise.

Writing Chuck Palahniuk a letter ASAP this week to see if he is still up for reviewing a draft of the book this summer. He offered at one point when I did the interview with him, but that was a while ago, and probably just a nicety (as I’m sure most people who say they are writing a novel never follow through an actually do it. Hell, look how long I’ve been saying I’m doing it before it really happened). I expect he will politely decline, but he is planning to put out a how-to book on minimalism in 2006, so perhaps it will be a good hook in that regard. He did give me his PO Box to send him the draft and all, so no harm in asking him to recommit. He’s coming through here on tour later this month, so figure it is better to send the letter first, put the face to the letter when he comes through town, and then hit him with the draft if he’s interested quickly thereafter. Just need to know where everything stands now as things get closer.

Tomorrow is supposed to be nice and warm, so I’m thinking of heading to the beach. Mainly out of duty, as whenever I was going into work on a beautiful day, it bothered me that people without jobs could go to the beach, so it seems now that it is an option, I should be following through and doing it. Just get a little sun… relax. We’ll see.

Oh, yeah, saw Nine Inch Nails and Tori Amos this past week, but sold my Weezer ticket since their new album didn’t do all that much for me. Tori was good, but I always feel like I can never love her enough when surrounded by her ardent fans. Jeremy and I got last-minute aisle seats, and I joked with him that they were perfect, as being too close to Tori at an acoustic show can be "creepy," since she’ll just stare you down too much. I think the Toriphile next to me heard that, so it was off to a bad start right away. She did play a lot of songs I liked, but there were also a lot of long, cloying songs. Basically, every piano-based song was amazing, but every other keyboard she had tended to drag out the songs more. And, I don’t think I will ever just accept all of her overly-emphasized breathing histrionics into the microphone. But, every time I see Tori live, she falls into the concert category of people I really think I should be listening to more of their CDs more often… and then never do (See: REM, Pearl Jam)

Nine Inch Nails, however, restored my faith that I am not in a miserable funk that nothing can pierce. After being iffy on the U2 show, I really thought I was viewing everything through a filter that gave it less resonance that prevented me from connecting with it on am amazing level. Nine Inch Nails showed me that was untrue.

I have been a huge NIN fan for years. I think I saw eight or nine shows on the Downward Spiral tour, although most of them, admittedly, were in attempt to interview Trent for OUT Magazine. He notoriously made the press follow him around for a while, always at the ready for an interview that he would never tend to give. The upside is you get to see a lot of shows, hear apologies from his PR people, and be forced to interact with his opening act as a consolation prize, which rocked, since Marilyn Manson was opening for him then.

Anyway, I already downloaded With Teeth in advance over the Internets, much to the dislike of the RIAA, but I would hate to see NIN live and not know what the hell he was playing. Turns out, it was largely unnecessary, as he only played a few tracks from it, unlike U2 which played the majority of its new album live.

This time out, Trent is clean and sober, and he seemed to be in good spirits, which could spell disaster considering his lyrical content. But, his sobriety seems to have no effect on his ability to seek catharsis (whether real or onstage theatrics) live in concert. He played a solid set mixing a lot of great songs off of every album, going from beginning through to Head Like A Hole with no encores. He also did an amzing acoustic piano version of "Hurt" that became an unlikely yet amazing sing-along for the sold out crowd on the tour’s opening night.

I don’t explore why I like what I do. I am not the type of person to dig deep into lyrics or books. I may even know all of the lyrics, but never analyze them. I like keeping one step removed from things and experience them emotionally rather than analytically. That said, I do not know what it is about Trent that makes me connect to him and his music. It is just a vibe. Part of me doesn’t really want to know what it is. Not out of fear, but just because I don’t think that knowledge would allow me to experience a "feeling" from the music, it would become more os a response to the music.

Similarly, when I read the Nabokov MFA books (and I’m starting the Dickens this week), it isn’t about dissection. I am reading them because they are classic books, and books stand the test of time for a reason. When I think back on Mansfield Park, there is no outright lesson I’ve learned, but I would like to think my writing will improve by having read it. Again, like how I experience my music, I want that to exist on a subconscious level.

However, the book I am now reading (Interview with the Vampire) is raising a lot of questions for me. I think a large part of it is that I enjoy the story, but really dislike how it is told. First of all, the entire set-up for me rings false. The entire "interview" seems a forced framing device. The interviewer is adding nothing but a reason for the vampire to keep going on about his story. It is also the longest book of direct quoting I have ever read in my life, given it is all the vampire talking into the interviewer’s tape recorder, largely without any prompting from the interviewer.

I can’t stop wondering why it was written this way. I mean, no book has a "reason" it is being told, so why do we need this "interview" to exist for the vampire to tell his story? Why not "Confessions of a Vampire" and just have him tell a first-person story directly to the reader? It just seems I am constantly being pulled out of a more interesting story for the sake of a needless framing device.

People have said the writing can also be amateurish and cloying in this book but, while I can see examples that would lead people to this conclusion, there is enough meat in the story to overlook some sloppy language for me. There is a whole, detailed world here that is worthy of exploration.

It also seems that, had the book been written following a more minimalist, first-person style, it would be more intimate and experiential. As it stands now, we remain outside the story as readers, rarely inhabiting Louis and seeing his world as richly as it seems we could.

But hell, who knows how people might rip my book apart once it comes out. I guess the point here is that sometimes, I can’t help but to dissect some pieces of art, while letting others slide. It probably has to do more with Rice doing things I am trying to specifically avoid in my own writing, so they leap out at me as obvious, which is a good sign.

Hmm, once again, it seems to happen that when I start a blog entry, wondering why I am even bothering, as I have nothing to write about, they tend to become some of my longer entries. Go figure.