The Next Challenge

If you know me, you know I'm a bit of a fitness failure. I have yo-yoed on my weight, my flexibility is a joke, and I have been more weak than strong for most of my life. Around two years ago I stepped on a scale and saw a number that shocked me to my core. I weighed 262 pounds. I am not a tall, or well-muscled, person so the only thing to account for this weight was fat. And it was obvious. You could see it hanging off me. I wore big clothes, so you couldn't see the full scope of how far I had let myself go, but it was obvious that I was overweight. Finally, I did something about it. After the shock of seeing that number wore off, I vowed to make changes in my life to be healthier. You see, I'm not someone who would ever expect to look fantastic, and I'm kind of ok with that. I would mostly just like to feel good, have a bit of energy, and not suffer through days with a shortness of breath or the creeping fatigue that I had wandered around with for so long.

To this end, I realized that my first step was to really look at the horrible things I put in my body on a regular basis. I was a fairly terrible eater. Tons of high-fat, processed food with little to no nutritional value. Fast food. Empty calories in the form of soda, candy, grease. A total disaster. After a bit of thought I decided that the first casualty of my new plan would be soda. I drank more than most, totaling at least two cans a day, usually closer to 5. And besides the caffeine addiction, I was deeply, horribly dependent on high fructose corn syrup. I went cold-turkey, and for a year I didn't take a sip of the stuff. After a year, I tried a Coke, my drink of choice for most of my life, and I didn't like it at all. It was as if breaking the addiction allowed my body to heal and realize that this shit was poison. These days I will have the occasional lemon-lime soda if I'm in the mood for something sweet, but it's quite rare that I do, more along the lines of how that stuff should be consumed, if you're gonna have it at all.

Having conquered one obstacle, I was ready for more. I have enough knowledge about nutrition and the body to realize that dieting was the last thing I needed. What I was looking for was a wholesale change of my relationship to food. I decided to start keeping a food diary. Thankfully, with the technology available today, it was relatively simple. I have an app on my phone, I enter the important bits, scan barcodes if possible, and track my nutrition each day. I went into this process with the understanding that if I tried to set too high a standard I would most likely fail, give up, and regress back into old habits, so I decided at first to not limit anything but I had to honestly keep track of it all. This simple process brought me to better decisions within mere days. Once you get an honest picture of what certain "foods" actually mean to your health and fitness, the decisions sort themselves out.

In conjunction with my food diary, I also decided to start running. It should be noted at this time that I positively HATE running. Always have. When I was young and fit, playing sports in school and all that, hated running then too. But the fact is that aerobic movements are the most basic, easy, efficient way to start burning the calories needed for weight loss. Knowing myself as I do, I realized once again, that I'm not the guy who will stick to a running regimen just for the sake of it, so I signed up for a race. The joke of my youth was always that I would run only when chased, so I signed up for a Zombie Run. A 5k race where you are, quite literally, chased by folks dressed and made up as zombies. I gave myself 8 months, and I downloaded a training program from the web, and with the race date in mind I started running. And it actually paid off. No surprise, really, I mean the fact is that weight loss is one thing and one thing alone: burn off more calories than you take in. And I was doing that. Between the food diary and the running, I was also doing is smartly, not starving myself and sabotaging my metabolism and not over-indulging to the point of harming my training. From the nightmare of my biggest weigh-in to the race, I lost just over forty pounds. 40. And I was feeling good. Lighter, healthier, my breath was stronger, I wasn't sore every morning when I got out of bed. Making the decision to correct that area of your life and actually accomplishing it is a pretty incredible feeling.

So I am at it again.

Since my race last October, I have put on about 7 pounds. I know these are not healthy pounds of muscle because the truth is, it got cold and I stopped running. But the weather is changing again, and it's time to set new goals. Things are a bit different this time, as I am starting from a slightly better place, therefore I am setting loftier goals. I also have a new job that is fairly physical which means I come home tired most nights and head to bed earlier than ever before in my life and I'm not sure if this is gonna help or hurt, so we'll see. But I have signed up for a Spartan Race this time. Five miles, up a ski mountain, with intense physical obstacles such as rope climbs and pulling buckets full of rocks. A friend who did this race last year said it was the hardest thing he has ever done in his life, and he's 170 pounds of nothing but muscle so the thought that I'm out of my depth is definitely there. But that's the finish line for my training and part of me can't wait to see how I do. In conjunction with this I have also signed up for a body composition challenge. When I ran the zombie race last year I only trained by running. I figured since that was really all it entailed there was no reason to mix in other disciplines. With this race there are a great many strength challenges along the way. Besides being a mud run, the obstacles are quite hardcore. I am not in shape for such things... yet. To that end I signed up for CrossFit training at a local gym (they call them boxes, but I haven't finished the kool-aid yet). It just so happened that during my trial membership they offered this body comp challenge, and it runs almost perfectly concurrent with my race schedule. Yesterday I went it for Hydrostatic Body Composition Analysis. They float you in a tub of water and do some math and wham, you have the most scientifically accurate measurement of the amount of fat on your body. This might sound daunting to some, but the truth is it was a relief for me. I like to know where I stand, and the certainty of these numbers was almost comforting because I truly believe that I'm not going to be there for long. At the end of the challenge they take the measurements again and you see how you progressed.

Just the facts:
Age - 38 (for another week or so)
Height - 5' 11 and 1/2 inches
Weight - 228 pounds
Body Fat - 24.94%
Fat Body Mass - 56.85 pounds

Supposedly the ideal for men is 15% body fat or thereabouts, which means my idea weight is about 201 pounds.  In addition, I have taken in upon myself to mark some other measurements which I am hoping will change in the next few months. All numbers are in inches:
Neck - 18
Chest - 46 1/2
Waist - 44 1/2
Hips - 40 1/2
Thigh - 25
Calf - 16 1/2
Arm - 14 1/2

This was a bit more disappointing than the fat measurements, because I do wear 36 inch waist pants and I thought my neck was 17 1/2, but again, it's just the place I'm starting now, soon to be the past. I briefly considered putting up a before picture or two on this post to go along with all these numbers, but I realize that besides being public, even those who know me are likely not want to see me so close to undressed.

So that's where I begin. Old enough to know it's gonna hurt, stupid enough to think age doesn't matter, and hopeful about where I'll be in three months. I took my first real CrossFit class today and I can only describe is as feeling like I lost a very large bar fight. Tomorrow is my first training run and I can only imagine what that's gonna feel like. But every day is a bit easier, and every time I get out of the shower and see a slightly different reflection in the mirror I'll be that much more dedicated. Wish me luck.

maybe I'm wrong

It seems like there's something about driving home listening to Frank's Wild Years after a great night with a beautiful girl that just makes a guy feel really powerful, like you're in possession of some special secret knowledge. Thrilling and yet calming at the same time, and almost wholly untouchable.

And then there's that other type of knowledge, The Buddha Walks Into A Bar...

Some Things I Know

Some Things I Know

(but there are far more things I do not know)

I know a bit about time

I first learned it, as we all do, in that moment

when the blurry, unexpected image that we cannot yet

define as "mother," but instinctively associate

with safety and love, leaves our useless infant vision

and then returns

I know things happen in their own time

but I do not know how to reconcile the fact that with

a smart phone and browser I can instantly peruse the entirety of

mankind's learning and experience up until right now,

yet it took me months to understand or accept that I am

still in love with you

I know that matters very little, but I do not know

why time is not on my side

Despite what I know about time, I do not know how 

a clock or a watch functions; that is, if they did not exist 

already, I would not know how to invent them

I would never know the patience it takes to place each small

movement in alignment with another so perfectly

that our time could be kept like a gift

I can look at a clock's face and immediately know a great many things,

though I can look at your face for days and never know 

what you are thinking, or what your impression of me is,

or if your wistful look has anything at all to do with us

I know that I am not what you want, even if, by some

miracle, I became what you need

I do not know what I could do to become either of those things

So I don't know that I could ever explain duality, though a possibility

exists that I am part of one

In sixth grade I was given instruction in orienteering,

but I do not know the purpose of a compass in a world

where asphalt trails outnumber dirt trails, or where 31 computers

hovering in space can tell me, to within 20 feet, how close

I am to you at any given moment

I don't know how close I should be

and I don't know how to get closer

I know that for many years we did not see each other at all,

and you were often far away

I know this was a good thing for us, though I don't know why I believe that

I know that the world keeps turning, 

but I do not know if this is why I keep coming back to you

I know that you don't like to be touched,

at least, not in the way that I enjoy touching

I do not know if there is a way to overcome that

I don't know if you could ever give me a more sensual greeting

than you did three nights ago without even trying

I know that I want to spend most of my time with you,

but I don't know how you would take hearing that

I also don't yet know how to be near you without being awkward or

without letting the past weigh on every second of now

Sometimes I lose my breath 

I know it is because of how nervous I still am around you

I did not know until 

recently that I could breathe clumsily

I don't know how long I can keep this secret that

seemingly everyone knows

I don't know how I am going to go on when the dream ends

I know there is no such thing as perfection, but I don't know how

much longer I can believe that with you in my life

As I said, I know it doesn't really matter anyway,

but I don't know how to wake up anymore

and go through my days

and do all the things I know I must

unless I am allowed to, I don't know, love you

10.25.11

Past, present, future

So, for the last couple of days I have been using my free time to transfer the entirety of my OLD online journal onto Blogger from LiveJournal. It took hours and hours, and I doubt anyone besides myself will ever go back into the archive of my brain vomit, but it was something I've wanted to accomplish for a while now. I'm glad it's finally finished.

Anyone who does care to go back and check may notice a slightly different tenor to the earlier entries. And I think that the future entries might tend towards that same voice. It's fairly obvious that my Alaskan summer was an anomaly in my journaling life. Better or worse I couldn't say, but definitely different.

I have to get back into the swing of things, writing wise. Relying on inspiration alone is not cutting it. And I don't know if there's gonna be any value in anything on here, but fuck it. I can be just as self-indulgent as anyone else on the web. Just watch.

other miracles

I want to remember what life felt
like to be new. I want fresh and
fearless experience, unhindered by human
drama and dreary cynicism. I'm tired of
having the purity of my joy diluted by
the derision of others or my own jaded mind.

I want to experience the world as a child,
with wonder and awe. It is not enough
for me to stand under the sky and
bask in the warmth of the sun, I need to
marvel at these things and respect them
for the miracles that they are.

I should start by recognizing love in my
life in all of its forms and to stop taking
it for granted. There must be a way for
me to reach out with my purest forms
of love without being overwhelming or
insufferable, and I must find this balance.

Love, and joy, and other miracles,
so elusive these days. Or perhaps just without
their proper pallette, unable to color
the world the way I dream I could.

James, gym, Jimi

An interesting phenomena has occurred here in Talkeetna. For whatever reason, everyone here calls me James. I am not opposed to this. In fact, when most people meet me and ask me what I would like to be called I tell them that James or Jim are equally fine. Back home almost everyone calls me Jim. A few people used James, the more formal, full name, on occasion, and there's even a guy I know who calls me Seamus. The only variation of my name that I do not offer to others is Jimmy. Most people might think that I don't like going by this name, but that's not the truth. Actually, the story is that while growing up the only people who called me Jimmy were my family, and when someone that isn't family refers to me as that (not including karaoke aliases) it always makes me feel like I'm being treated or spoken to like a little kid. This is not a hard and fast rule, because some old timers use Jimmy as a part of natural speech. My name was more popular in the past than it is now, so Jimmy was a very common nickname. But when James started making its appearance in my life, roughly six to ten years ago, I almost fought it. It seemed too formal, not at all me. But the more I heard it, especially from a certain few women in my life, it took on a special air. Jim may be the guy behind the bar, but James is the name of kings. These days I really don't prefer one or the other. When I'm introduced, or when I'm asked my name, I just say whatever comes to mind. I've been wondering if leaning towards one or the other is some indication of how informal I want my relationship with each person to become. I'm not sure, and it probably doesn't matter anyway, but it's something that I've wondered lately and I doubt I'll ever really know.

          ~~~~~          ~~~~~          ~~~~~          ~~~~~          ~~~~~

Every month I have ten dollars deducted from my bank account to keep my Gold's Gym membership open. I joined about five months before I came to Alaska, and this little maintenance fee keeps my account active so I don't have to re-join when I get back. I still manage to keep the fantasy of getting in shape alive, and I pay a steep price for it. The membership is about sixty a month regularly, and that includes my access to the boxing equipment and classes. For as much fun as I used to have in my Krav Maga class, I thought that the access to all the boxing, MMA, and kickboxing stuff they offer at Gold's would really keep me interested and going in. It didn't really help. I was working out, but there just wasn't the same camaraderie or good times at Gold's. Maybe when I head home I should try again, give it more time, but I miss the ass-kickery that went on almost nightly in Krav. Coming up here, I knew that there wasn't going to be any fancy gym around, or even simple weights or who knows what kind of place to do anything. I made a conscious choice to go very far back to basics and do strictly body weight exercises while working in kettlebells as often as my body would allow. Well, I was doing really well for about three weeks and now, nothing. There was no real reason, either, I just stopped. I lost all interest in exercise. I haven't even been hiking in weeks now (although that probably has more to do with the insane amounts of rain that have been falling). For some reason I am not able to stay motivated towards these things, even though I finally have the time and the space. It is like life called bullshit on my grand plans, and I don't even have a witty response. The sad part is, I do hate the way I look, and especially the way I feel about my health and physical fitness. Weight loss is one thing, and it would be great, but I just want to FEEL good and have some energy from day to day. The circumstance is different here, but not the result. I need to take better care of myself.

          ~~~~~          ~~~~~          ~~~~~          ~~~~~          ~~~~~

Somewhat to that end, I have recommitted myself to the undying love of my life. If I am to be healed, it will not be from traveling, or from the mountain, or the strange and sometimes fascinating experiences of my summer away, it will be from the one thing that has always healed me. The sun that always shines on my soul: music. I left work one day last week with a heavy heart and a mind full of rage. It was a shite day to cap off a few in a row, and things were being done at my job that seemed almost specifically designed to mess with me. By the time I finally got to leave I was at my boiling point. I decided that instead of going right home to stew I would head up to the highway where the supermarket and gas station are and get some fuel, some air in my tires, and a few groceries. This trip is about 12 miles, and I thought it might be good for me. Well I was very right, because the goddess Minerva was smiling on me and as soon as I hit the road my iPod started belting Jimi Hendrix out through my speakers as loud as I could take it. My temper calmed, my mind was put at ease, it even seemed as though the sun was fighting through the clouds to make an appearance. By the time Machine Gun came on it was like an entirely different day. Music has always had the ability to alter my moods. Usually it happens on days when I'm already up, and the right song comes on and I'm taken to a whole different plane of existence. But when you're down it can be even more important to have those sounds surround you and lift you back up. And if 6 turns out to be 9, I don't mind, I don't mind...

Jet Boats vs. ATVs - ATVs Win!

So, in the last two weeks since I braced this space to become my whiny headspace clearinghouse, I have worked and played and worked some more, but suffered no bouts of existential angst and had no real problems to vent. Truth is, it's just plain ol' crazy what you can get used to. I am at the point now where I am closer to leaving than I am to my arrival here. Summer is half past, and I'm settled into the groove of life, the way we all do, when it just keeps coming at us. There have been ups and downs, to be sure, but the rest is just life.

It's not that I didn't expect this to happen, I know from past forays into the weird (I'm looking at you, Army) that when you just take each day as it comes you eventually just develop routines and all of a sudden it's not weird anymore. I just figured that it would have been something that I noticed, like a definitive moment in my workaday life, where I recognized how adept I am at being a temporary Talkeetnan. It actually kinda whispered past. Perhaps it was Wednesday night, when I was suffering from an extremely rare (for me) bout of insomnia. As I lay awake, re- and de- composing letters to friends in my head, imagining the pub that I will one day open, and trying to figure out what I'm going to do when I get back to the Jerz, maybe that was the night that I transformed from a guy who wasn't sure that he was gonna last here to a guy who has a full time job, a place of his own, good friends and neighbors, and a fairly decent social life. I can't really say, because it happened when I wasn't looking, but living. Like all important moments do.

I have had a steady schedule for the last month, which is really great compared to the first few weeks I was there when my days off changed every week. Even more remarkable is that I have managed to squeak by the rain once or twice and actually go out and have some fun in the sun. Last weekend I took advantage of the lodge employee discount (re: free) and went on a Mahay's Jet Boat Adventure Tour. You spend a couple of hours riding up the Talkeetna River, they try and show you some local wildlife or just a lovely ride out on the water. We saw a few bald eagles, from a distance, but not much else. There is also a small nature walk component where they pull off to the bank and you go into the woods to visit a native style camp and a trapper's cabin. It was an ok time, but seemed more like the kind of trip you'd go on in middle school for social studies class. Since I was ill-informed about the types of trips Mahay's offers, I didn't realize that you could go on a different ride that took you five hours up river to a class 5 whitewater area called Devil's Canyon. Guess I have to go back and take the grown up ride.

Dena'ina Indian Encampment, part 1

Dena'ina Indian Encampment, part 2

Trapper's Cabin

Inside the trapper's cabin.

A trapper's cache.

The Talkeetna River & a Mahay's Jet Boat

Doubt you'll make it out, since I took this with my cel, but there's a bald eagle up there.

Tuesday evening of this past week, I was invited by one of my lovely co-workers, who also happens to be one of the cooks at the lodge, to share in the wonderful bounty of a Thanksgiving Dinner in July. Hannah and her roommates put together quite a spread. There was turkey, stuffing, potatoes, home made macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, home made gravy, and biscuits. Not to mention desert, consisting of pies and cupcakes and cookies, oh my. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and celebrating an extra one in the middle of summer was a great way to spend an evening so far from home. There were a whole bunch of people from work there, including some night shift folks that I never see. Afterwards, in lieu of a game of catch with the pigskin, we threw a frisbee around and then headed into town for some adult libations. I had to be up for work at 4:45 the next morning, so I didn't stay out too late, but it was a good night with some good people. And my first real home cooked meal in months. Oh, yeah, and I played ping-pong for the first time in many years too, and even though I am a little rusty, I think I've still got it.

Today was, by far, the best day of the week. Except for sleeping in a bit later than I would have liked, everything came up roses today. I had a great breakfast at the lodge, enjoying French Toast that isn't as good as mine, but sure ain't bad either. Then I headed into town to check my PO Box and discovered a package sent to me by some wonderful friends back home, which consisted of multiple packs and one loaf of Case's Pork Roll to warm my grateful belly. Sufficed to say, dinner tonight was delicious. This afternoon, I arranged for another employee discounted adventure, this time trail riding 4-Wheel ATVs all over the local area. It's a three hour tour, but since we weren't on a boat I wasn't too worried about being a castaway. I've never ridden a quad before, and it was a blast. The weather cooperated, the guy running the tour was amenable to my attempts to see how fast I could hit trails and take turns, and I didn't crash or fall even once. I look forward to going back when there are no vacationers in the group and seeing what those things can really do. And I don't think I'm gonna have to worry about a re-occurrance of that insomnia tonight. Tomorrow it's back to work, back to the routine. Just plain old living. Just like they're doing anywhere else on earth.

The Talkeetna River from the trail high on the banks.

Another spot along an old ski trail, on a clear day you can see Denali from here.

Your humble author, rugged and ridin'.

I am a Paper Journal Failure

I swear I have tried, many times. I've owned at least four different journals. I've gone from cheap black n' white marbled composition books to custom leather cover Oberon journals with a replaceable insert. I just can't seem to get behind writing in the little bastards. I don't know what it is. When I write other things, poetry or lyrics or whatever, I actually prefer notebooks to typing, but something about the process of "journaling" or writing a diary or blog just screams KEYS to me. I wonder if it is something in my brain, like the difference between creative writing versus writing about events and thought processes that are not completely invented. My blog and journal entries are creative (at least as far as I am capable of rendering them) to be sure, but they are never purely conjured the way that my other writing is.

I am a bit disappointed in myself with this realization, or rather, with accepting this fact. Just before I left for Alaska I bought a new insert for my fancy leather journal. Also, my folks went out and got me this very cool little black journal with a magnetic latched cover. They both sit, undisturbed, in a box next to my couch. Once I set this blog in motion, I kind of accepted that I would be spending less time writing things in little books, but I did not anticipate abandoning them entirely. The most frightening prospect now, the little spot in the distance that seems to grow as it gets closer, is how I think this space will come to evolve in the near future into my one and only outlet for the stinky mental, emotional, and psychological detritus that I occasionally need to purge from the recesses of my mind.

My entries, to this point, have revealed a little bit of my thought process and next to nothing of the dark corners of my mind. But living as I am, with no one in particular to be the sounding board for all of my less happy-happy joy-joy thinking, I fear that sooner or later I will just take the plunge and let the words fly here. My fear of this happening is two-fold. First, it will take a fair bit of patience on the part of the reader to deal with all of my tedious ramblings, and second I may well reveal things about my feelings towards others and the lives they lead that are better left un-spoken. I would never do this in a callous or thoughtless manner, but it might still lead to hurt feelings or misunderstandings. After all, if I say someone is a pain in my ass and twelve people all assume I'm talking about them because I'm not going to use names, well, that can only lead to trouble. A third potential problem, but one I'm not even really worried about, is the impact of my opinions on anything else. If I come on here and say something that offends someone's delicate sensibilities, well then they should just stop reading. But the audience here is practically guaranteed to only be people who know me personally, and I don't ever want to have a discussion where I'm explaining myself in person about something I wrote on here four months ago. It's tiresome and just plain stupid.

I suppose the point of this is really a roundabout disclaimer. As much as I just wanted to only write about traveling and the experiences of what some might have considered a working vacation, the reality of having two jobs, not a lot of money, and about 1/100th of the social circle I enjoyed at home has led to far more introspection than even I was prepared for. I just want to warn everyone that this blog isn't gonna be all rainbows and puppy dogs. And I'll just get this out of the way for the record:

The weather in Alaska fucking SUCKS this year.

"how can I make this clear?

it seems so simple yet

I could spend my whole life 

saying things that make no sense"

~ Dag Nasty

She is not rising, I am not still

I came to the mountain to find my name. To hear it spoken
in the resolute tones of the land. I came to find my name in the
grasses of the tundra, as if offered up by the very motions of the
plates below. The word is no secret, but I have never heard it
spoken so far from my home and my family. I sought out the mountain
to remind me of the beginning of all things, and of the rising of
the sun. In the Athabaskan language, Denali means "the Great One."
This was where I searched, but she is not rising.

I am not still. Even as I sit here, not a muscle twitching, my blood
continues to slither throughout my body and
my cells swim freely in their own liquid atmospheres.
I want to be a better man. I want to function more efficiently.
My mind, my body, and my soul should all work as one.
But there is a problem, because the soul is evidenced only
through its absence, as in: "you ain't got no soul" or its practical
application, such as the soulful voice of Nneena Freelon.
As I search through years of cast-off emotions, there
is no way to keep the information organized, no way
to halt my ebb and flow.

When I leave the mountain, empty handed regardless of the outcome
of my search, I will guard my name for the rest of my days.
I will also hold the mountain as a sacred thing. She is the conjurer of
my destiny, the bearer of my compass. We are all the pioneers of our
own lives, but for every victory and defeat for the rest of my days
I will have the memory of this journey. For each face I kiss and each
hand I hold I will know that it was my return from the mountain and
my time as her witness that made the taste sweet and the gesture
genuine. When I first came here I was like a child who believed
Denali was growing right before me and that I was holding my ground
against the breaking waves of life, but I was wrong.
She is not rising, I am not still.