Sunday, October 18, 2009

Too Little Butter Spread over Too Much Bread

The past two weeks have been difficult, primarily because my workout schedule sucks and this is making me very unhappy. Anyone who knows me is likely to laugh, as I’ve never really taken any work out program seriously before, but let’s lay out recent changes.

Value Changes

My values with respect to working out have changed. I have two motives. The first is pragmatic and the second is spiritual. First, I discovered that working out in concert with B-12 seriously improves my health and overall energy level. This real difference on a daily level is worth the fight.. I feel healthier when I go the gym. I love the feeling of blood pumping up my muscles for a few days after a workout. It makes me happy.

The second is that being queer has changed my spirituality. Before I was always concerned with the soul and the mind. Discovering a world of sex has really changed the way I look at the body. I realize that the core of my peace of mind is the body. There is nothing more beautiful than the male form. When I see a built guy, especially one who doesn’t have an asshole streak—that sort of energy is really offputting—seeing his body puts me at peace and fills me with awe. I realize that I want to be that for any queer guy like me who needs to see it. I’ll never be Brian Urlacher, I understand this, but I can be better than my present form.

We didn’t have the cash for a gym membership in Tel Aviv, so I didn’t get to work out at all. Craig lost weight there, but I didn’t. I’m not as badly off as when I started working out at the start of summer, but I hate being in the hole again. I need to get back on the wagon.

What Works

To be successful, I need to:

  1. Eat Breakfast: This is a double latte (a shot of caffeinated espresso, a shot of decaf, and ¾ of a cup of steamed 1 percent milk), a large bowl of Fiber One Cereal (aka Super Colon Blow from Saturday Night Live), and a low-fat, high-fiber Jimmy Dean Pseudo-McMuffin.
  2. Work out immediately: I lift two days and do cardio for the other three.
  3. Eat lunch: This meal will be larger than breakfast. I’ll be good and hungry. A stir fry with brown rice is good. Unlike when I first wake up, I can actually eat a larger meal after working out. I find that if I eat at this time, I don’t have much hunger or energy lulls during the day.
  4. Snack three times through the afternoon on apples, celery, etc.
  5. Dinner: A large salad and chicken or steak.

Root of the Problem: My Teaching Schedule Sucks

I’m a teaching assistant this term. That means I’m on campus five days a week—a commute totaling roughly twelve hours. Moreover the schedule itself is lousy. The lecture is at 9:30, as are my first sections. So I’ve got to be there bright-eyed and busy-tailed. Anyone who knows me, knows that I don’t do bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Moreover, my second sections are at 12:30, so on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’m trapped on campus. I have to work in the law library (where no one knows me and I can’t get sidetracked).

This Leads to Difficulties with Working Out and Diet

All of this means that I’m having trouble managing working out and eating. I’m only working out two or three times a week. After Wednesday, I’m really dragging. I have two many “on” days. Without the B-12, I’d never make it to the gym at all. But still, I can’t pretend that I’m a normal, healthy, 38 year-old man who can push myself exactly as hard as I please. Thursdays and Fridays, I drag. I seriously lifted for the first time again last week. I did it right in doing the ultrapathetic workout the week before. I was sore, but not in pain today.

Because I need to prep in the morning for sections, I tend to workout later in the morning, rather than early. It sucks. Craig and I had a really busy weekend and I haven't cooked. I'm going to be, as the Hobbit once said, "Like too little butter spread over too much bread."

Plus, I have a huge hang-up about visible progress from my previous high-energy life. My shoulders SUCK. I really want to see some progress there over the next few months, but with this pathetic schedule, I can’t hold my breath on that count. I hate not having shoulders. I’m thinking about starting to run. I’ve always sucked at running. It would be so cool to be in good enough shape to play rugby. If I could, I’d take a page out of Kirk’s book and get the laser surgery so that I could see without glasses. Plus, I promised myself when field research was over, I could get a dog. It would be cool to be one of those guys who runs with his dog by Lake Washington. Plus, I like yellow labs, but they’re energetic dogs.

I need to build myself for this. I also need to survive this term. I’ve been working on a new proposal. I’m getting there. This is all progress, it just doesn’t feel like it. I have to make sure I don’t lose faith in myself. Just because it feels slow, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I have to stick with it, despite the fact that I won’t feel like I’m making progress. The hardest thing about MS is that it’s a slow boring of hard boards. It takes passion, but perspective. I suck at perspective.

Friday, October 09, 2009

Greenland from the Sky

I took these shots of Greenland from the air on the flight home from Tel Aviv. They all punch up to larger sizes for more detail (less than a meg each, though). Let me know what you think.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

About Last Night

The O-Line stinks and will continue stink all season. They were sort of okay when Jeff Jagodzinski was here. Still, the success of the 2007 season was more luck than skill. Since Jagodzinski left, it’s clear that there’s no one to coach this zone blocking approach. If the line is to get better, we need a change of coaching staff or BIGGER LINEMEN and a more traditional approach.

McCarthy seems to be a good QB coach. Sadly, he seems to have been promoted beyond his greatest competence. Under his leadership, we will continue to be a mediocre football team. I officially vote no confidence in his leadership.

I don’t want to talk about Brent anymore. I just don't.

It was good to hang out with Shawn Lee. I am mindful that I own him and Simon letters of recommendation. Simon's has to be written tonight.

Friday, October 02, 2009

Yankees? WTF?!

Shawn Lee, survivor of POL S 325, wrote to me while I was out of the country to complain about my “misguided” sense of sports loyalties.

Yankees: WTF! The fucking yankees. How Boring! That is all it took, take Talal to the ballgame, buy him some peanuts and a new ballcap, and he won't care if he ever comes back? The Yankees are the arrogant bratty prep school rich kid of baseball, they don't cultivate thier own talent, they just buy it from other teams, because they have far greater resouces than every one else. Any attempt at revenue sharing is routinely killed by the Yanks. Anyone interested in social justice, and aren't all you liberal academics interested in that?, should not support the Yanks. Enjoy rooting for Goliath. I am sure that is satisfying for the soul.

Your sports loyalities seem a bit troubling. There is no regional logic to them, and seems to have a heavy dose of (gulp) front-runnerism. By buddy from Detroit finds it odd that you are a Wings fan and a Packers fan, and now throw the Yanks in the mix. Whoa.

What’s truly magnificent about that speech is that I can hear it in Shawn’s voice in my head. Sports fandom brings out the passion in the male voice. It’s a beautiful thing.

Despite my admiration for the rhetoric, I have, however, felt for a few weeks now that this required some sort of rebuttal. Moreover, Neil has had his real life troubles over the past week, so I thought this might cheer him up. Here's hoping.

> Yankees: WTF! The fucking yankees. How Boring!

And there I was thinking I was being controversial... For what its worth, you don’t sound bored, Shawn.

> That is all it took,
> take Talal to the ballgame, buy him some
> peanuts and a new ballcap, and he won't
> care if he ever comes back?

Well, Neil actually did spend hour after impassioned hour explaining the strike zone and the nuances of the catcher-pitcher-batter triad. Listening to him explain strategy while at a baseball game is actually quite mesmerizing. But yeah, sheer enthusiasm and giving a shit was basically the price of my loyalty. I thought I was easy. But out of all my friends over several years, Neil was the only one who cared. So I’m a Yankees fan.

> The Yankees are the arrogant bratty
> prep school rich kid of baseball, they
> don't cultivate their own talent, they
> just buy it from other teams, because
> they have far greater resources than
> every one else.

Hmm. My friend Kirk, a Red Sox fan once posted to this blog to say, “If you take a step back and look at the Yankees of late '90s objectively any true fan (even Red Sox fans) would have to admit the team truly did win through home-grown talent.”

Did I mention Kirk is a Red Sox fan?

> Any attempt at revenue sharing is
> routinely killed by the Yanks. Anyone
> interested in social justice, and aren't all
> you liberal academics interested in that?,
> should not support the Yanks. Enjoy
> rooting for Goliath. I am sure that is
> satisfying for the soul.

Actually, this is what I’m enjoying. I’m always on the losing side. I’m an Arab, not an Israeli. I’m a Democrat and not a Republican (Republicans manage to rule with an iron fist with a mere 40 votes in the Senate—you've got to admire the skill). I’m gay, not straight. I’m always on the runty, losing side. This is new and different. Besides, if baseball is all about bucolic suburban serenity, wouldn’t it make sense that I’d be a fan of the team that’s the Hegemonic Urban Machine?

> Your sports loyalities seem a bit troubling.

Do they now?

> There is no regional logic to them,

I’m quite literally from Bedouin stock. You know, the people who “wander from place to place?” I have no regional logic because I’ve never really settled anywhere. Well, actually there is one exception to the non-regional rule—I was born in Bridgeport, CT. As it’s right outside New York City, that would make it logical that I wound up an Yankees fan. In fact, that’s the only team that has a slight regional logic to it. I have been to New York many times. I’ve only been to the airport in Detroit and I’ve never set foot in Wisconsin. Although my dear friends Simon and Nelly want me to go tailgating with them for the Favre game at Lambeau Field. When financial aid money comes in, we’ll have to see. The ticket to Chicago is pricey. Although we may see of going straight to Wisconsin is cheaper…

> and seems to have a heavy dose of (gulp) front-runnerism.

This of course has been my bad (?) luck. The only thing I can say in my defense is that I had no idea how football was played when I became a Packers fan, let alone that Packers had won the Super Bowl the year before. I really gravitated toward the Wings very strongly because my buddy Aram was a big fan. I understood a lot more about hockey than football, so watching them play was mesmerizing. Of course, as you say, the ’98 Wings were a legendary team.

For what it’s worth, you’ll see me still root green and gold, despite the fact that our offensive line still stinks and it’s quite likely that Brent is going to hand us our collective asses next Monday.

> My buddy from Detroit finds it odd that you
> are a Wings fan and a Packers fan,

Come on. They don’t play football in Detroit. I mean, yeah, there’s that whole “Lions” team they’ve got there, but no one takes them seriously. Well, except maybe the Redskins.

> and now throw the Yanks in the mix. Whoa.

Kirk, ever the scholar of sports patterns, actually hit the trend:

You seem to have adopted the teams with the best team histories in other sports. Green Bay and Chicago have far and away the best team histories in the NFL, particularly pre-merger. After 1970 or so several other teams have been more interesting but the Packers still will always have one of the very best team histories in the sport. The same goes with the Red Wings, who were one of the original 6, each of whom have great team histories. I would say that is probably the one characteristic that most closely binds the Packers and Red Wings and going with the Yankees for baseball would fit very well.

I definitely have tended toward teams that have rich histories and, above all, a fanatically loyal fan base. I’m usually rooting for the visitor whenever I get to see any of my teams. It’s good to know that your fellow fans will always be a presence in the enemy stadium. I have to admit, that fanatical loyalty that reaches beyond geography is deeply appealing to me.

I don’t know if that will convince you, Shawn. But I feel secure in my sporting fan choices…