My story begins on a normal Saturday afternoon. I, like so many red-blooded Americans was doing my at home porcelain based impression of Rodin's "The Thinker", when I got the idea to check myself on the scale. I've never been much of one to keep track of my weight as it managed itself just fine without my interference for the last 27 years. Still, my interest was piqued and so I decided to see how We [yes, the royal kind] were getting by.
Now in the interest of full disclosure, I will not post my discovered weight. Understand that I'm the guy that remembers when he finally broke the milestone 130 pounds. It was in high school. I'm that guy. So I get that based off of perspective, this looks like a skinny kid complaining about being a slightly less skinny kid. In my defense I used to be in a modicum of shape. If athletes are said to be cut from stone or steel, I was cut from something more like copper, or really really stale Silly Putty. The results that came in from that 18 square inch demoralizing piece of plastic and springs confirmed that muscle weighs more than fat. However, when left unattended, fat multiplies like wire hangers in a closet. By no means am I setting up audition tapes for The Biggest Loser, or even looking in the weight management self help section at Wegmans. But I'm not comfortable with where I am.
On a different visit to Inspiration Point, I was regaling myself with the thoughts of the books I've read in the past few years. It was a remarkably short trip down memory lane. Now I could go on and on about the other valuable stories and experiences I've gained and enjoyed without having to travel the astronomical distance of 0.7 miles to the public library, and the strenuous exercise of digging my decades old green library card out of my wallet from behind my super outdated pink RockVentures belay card. But that's not the point of this story.
The point that I wandered my way into that day (and out of last paragraph) was that I have had a story or two meandering the highways and byways of my mind for quite sometime. Have you ever had someone talk and talk and talk until you would do anything to get them to be quiet for just a minute so you can decide if you want to put cream cheese on your bagel or go the extra mile and fry up some bacon with a little bit of cheddar to make a delicious breakfast sandwich? I'm sure that if I lived with you long enough, I could drive you off that cliff (sorry mom). Fortunately, I have the joy and privilege of living with that kind of person all the time - in my head. It was about time to man up, and fry some metaphorical bacon (or drive off a metaphorical cliff).
So I stand resolved. Effective immediately I have put together a plan to accomplish some difficult and new personal goals to validate my sense of self worth, which is a fancy way of saying I'm finally tired of being a flabby lazy slug not doing much of anything. And if you know me, you know how much I love not really doing anything. I'm a prince of procrastination, but that's a story for a different time. Just getting to this point is a bit of an accomplishment, so yay for me. To put a stamp on that accomplishment, I needed to come up with a title to my plan. I want to be fitter. I want to have more written. But Fitter and Written isn't cool enough in my book, hence: Fitt(en)er and Written(er). I needed a deadline, so I picked something that's fair and attainable, 2012.
Unfortunately, this was all in June. go me.
Over the past few months I occasionally revisited a portion of the idea here and there. Maybe on a Tuesday I would skip elevensies (that's lord of the rings speak for NNNEEEEEERRRRDD). Maybe I would comment on a dozen posts some late Sunday night with some really "insightful" thoughts. Then I had the amazing opportunity of being in a position to audition for a local production of The Wizard of Oz, and the stunning fortune to be cast in the role I wanted as the Tinman. During this truly magical time, I was confronted with my own...chunkitude (flabosity?). Again I openly admit that I'm probably not as bad as I'm describing, but the fog of time has blurred my memory of my former self to be around the "Not worried about having my shirt off in my own home with the windows closed" mark on the "requires zoological equipment to get x-rays --- Finely Crafted Adonis" scale. I want to get closer to my old "hockey shape".
The weird thing about the early part of the Oz run was that I had more than 1 person identify me as a "writer", though I never claimed to be one. That stuck with me, probably more than it should have. The run ended recently (it was a marvelous run capped with a sold out finale thanks for asking), and I've been dealing with the separation anxiety that comes with it. After an appropriate amount of time for mourning and recovery and searching every local theatre company in the Rochester area for another fix, and Thanksgiving parts 1, 2, and 3, I stand resolved. Again. For reals this time.
I want to be where I wanted to be at the end of my plan in the same amount of time, by 2012. And we preach accountability up and down the aisles at work, so there was only one option. Cave in and set up a blog where I can vent some of my thoughts to a public forum that I'm pretentious enough to believe people will read. So with great expansive waste of valuable internet real estate comes great responsibility. Or at least some commitments. I hope to make these commitments fair, realistic, and attainable, while remaining aggressive enough that I can't just skip out until this time next year and cram it all together in one giant binge like I did my various pieces of schoolwork.
Resolved:
- I will get back in to shape to a point where I don't tell myself "round is a shape" and then give myself a pity laugh.
- I will weigh less than my current, undisclosed weight. The only exception is that I am allowed to weigh more if I've converted at least 30 pounds to muscle. I can only assume I'd be able to bench press a VW Beetle at that point because I've never been that jacked in my life.
- I will author an additional 100 pages to the story I have started or to other stories that may show up in my mind. These pages and their contents will only be discussed and exposed at my discretion. One step at a time here.
- I will honestly answer anyone that asks "how's that thing you were doing about not being quite so lazy coming along?" or whatever variety that makes the same point. "How's it going?" does not count. I will provide that answer to the best of my ability at any time, via whatever channel the question is asked (even semaphore).
- I will try very hard to not let future posts continue to this exorbitant length. (sorry mom)
- If these commitments somehow lead me to massive fame and fortune, I will throw a giant Rock Band party for the people I know. And the cool people I haven't met yet.
I believe that language is powerful, and that it defines existence and can shape the world. I want to make sure that I thank some of you that inspired me to this point in some way. I want to thank my long time friend Lissa for creating a blog on a site that was easy and simple to use, because then I wouldn't have an excuse to wuss out. I want to thank the cast and crew of Oz, specifically those specific people that made the entire experience more fantastic and addicting than just about everything I could've hoped for, because it reminded me that it's always possible and good to strive to be better. I want to thank my wife Michelle, partly for joining a gym and looking great, but mostly for putting up with me always. That's a rough job she took on when she signed up for my last name. And thanks to John Buccigross (http://search.espn.go.com/john-buccigross/), for shaping my world of hockey and blogging with his language, for pointing me in the direction of Jack Falla's writing, and for providing me with a solid quote to end this monstrosity.
--"Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation." -- St. Augustine
Wish me luck. It's going to be an interesting 400ish days.
