Following a parade of recent inductees ranging in condition from mildly sedate to zombie-like headed to lunch, he walked slowly out of his 17 day dry-dock into the sunlight. Entering the 90 degree easy bake, he must have wished the sweater he wore was in the suitcase he carried. Over the two plus week respite, sobriety and anxiety grew together. Each phone call grew in coherence and angst, peaking with, “I can’t be in here with these people.” The behavioral danger he now saw clearly in them was completely lost on him for the rest of us. “How do you think we’ve felt all these years” I asked. “Yeah, I know.” He didn’t really, but I laid it right out there so his response was reflexive and deflecting. I straddled supportive and blunt language during the fifty or so calls we shared and during visits. I hope the mix was right.

Feeling the soft double rolling up and down sensation heading out the driveway, he said, “They say that speed bump is the beginning of recovery.” Later during the drive and between the many reminders of a needed caffeine fix I heard a description of being locked behind bars built of poppies… “H-e-r-o-i-n.” The spelling spared Kyle in row B from seeing the whole ghastly projection.

I have no idea whether that was just a speed bump or the back side a steep, treacherous, icy slope back to the deadly spike. I have only hope.

I don’t know how much the AAA chart (Adult Album Alternative – think “The River, Mountain, Crossroads or Coast” radio stations) moves records, but I hope it does and sells some for Wilco. Tonight I heard Kyle singing, “I don’t caaaaare anymore,” which blew my mind! “Kyle, are you singing a Wilco song?” “Yeah, BECAUSE YOU GOT IT STUCK IN MY HEAD!” was his feigned angry reply. Washing dishes, I had been singing the catchy chorus and after hearing Kyle mimicking thought, “You Never Know” would be such a great single! It’s a breezy, jangly summertime song with great harmonies, and sure enough, Wikipedia states it’s #4 on the Billboard AAA chart. That got me thinking about head Wilcee Jeff Tweedy. The guy is a brilliant songwriter and musician and he’s been at it with Wilco for nearly 15 years! I wonder how important a hit record would be to him… As imperative as it was to Eric Carmen in 1974? You never know.

“I just want a hit record, yeah
Wanna hear it on the radio
Want a big hit record, yeah
One that everybody’s got to know”

Overnight Sensation (Hit Record),
Written by Eric Carmen and first appeared on The Rasberries 1974 record, Starting Over

It wasn’t too long ago that walking presented an insurmountable challenge to my son, Kyle. Since then, and with the help of his doctors Madelena Martin and Christy Stine, well, he still won’t take a walk with me after dinner, but he does the 100 meter dash…

Saturday night pre-Wilco, good friend Jeff and I had a couple beers (and Jeff food poisoning) at a local (no name to protect the potentially innocent) watering hole. The place was jammed with twenty something’s that were in Grammar School when Jeff and I first saw the band back in ’95. Yeah, we’re old, especially me. (Clarification: When I asked Jeff if he thought we’d still be going to shows, “When I’m 75 and you’re 65,” Jeff made a point of parliamentary procedure and corrected the record that in fact, he’ll only be 63. Fifteenkey apologizes for the error.) Anyway, as we were exchanging words verbally, Jeff wandered into a story which prompted me to interrupt, “I already read that in your blog.” What followed was an amusing couple minutes about all the personal information we share with anyone who can read or be read to in our online diaries. Generally I’m very forthcoming with personal information outside of my Social Security number vault, and probably am guilty of “TMI” in the minds of some conversation partners, but that’s just me. In a recent management training class, I assessed as a high “I,” including the characteristics of “demonstrative” and “trusting.” At the point in the conversation where a masturbation joke happened (we overheard it from some other guys, it certainly wasn’t us…), I said, “See, if we wrote about that in our blogs, we’d have nothing to talk about in person…” There you go… TMI.

Last night at the Lowell Spinners game, a $6 “Steak Tip Sub” delivered more beef than I grilled for my whole family the night before and surely more than this “Biggest Loser at Work” contender should have consumed. I mindlessly housed it and two carbonated adult beverages… Oh, and there were peanuts, but no Cracker Jacks. They’re bad for ya.

Guilt ridden and bearing down on the scale more this morning than in previous days, I had to step up. I’ve only had the stair machine in a place I could use it for less than a week and in the 3 sessions so far, I’ve progressed from 20 to 25 to a full 30 minutes this morning. I highly recommend it paired with reading. As muscles work and blood rushes, synapses explode with ideas as words hit them. Add to that the LeoPod and Wilco’s new record and it was a jumbled, exhilarating mess. I’m certain it looked and sounded ridiculous as I climbed and sang badly. I don’t care. It was a great start to the day, which now continues with breakfast with Maddy!

Tonight I spoke soft words of small steps and encouragement. Then I took my first literal steps on the stair climber toward exercising a complement to my “I’m not eating that” weight loss strategy.

Lately Kyle and I have been taking the backstreets on our weekend trips. “Avoid Freeways” is a basic, yet nice feature to my GPS. Yeah, it’s the long way home, but it’s so much more interesting than the cold numeric concrete of 2, 3 and 495 to traverse some of the old historic Massachusetts turnpikes that are now state roads like 27 and 117.

“The Long Cut” is more visual and topographical, but tends to be trickier to travel and less well lit than modern interstates , but to get to some places, you can’t take any shortcuts. Take sobriety for example. There’s no fast lane for multiple passengers there. You’ve got to putter alone down a dark, lonely road with rough grade, steep inclines, sharp curves, scary descents and lurking potholes everywhere. There’s also the temptation of local roadside fast food joints, liquor stores and ice cream stands. Yeah, the ice cream is good, but it’s bad for ya and you’ve got to keep your eyes clear and looking ahead. Otherwise you could be off the road and a drive-by flashing light curiosity for the rest of us. Just keep progressing as slowly as you need to. Breathe. Eventually, your grip on the wheel will loosen, darkness will lose to light and beautiful new discoveries will be all around you…

—

To this day I still get music from my Tar Hut partner Dave. One song that hit me hard upon its release in 1996 crushed me tonight…

I can remember the afternoons
Just laying around and playing on the floor
Yeah you gave me a hard time now and then
Well that’s what big brothers are for
So I never made the trip to the city
Guess I didn’t want to have to see you that way
The thought of you alone in some hospital bed
Is something that still haunts me today

Well there’s no mercy
There’s no second chance

“No Mercy” from Waiting Around For the Crash by Go to Blazes , produced by Dave’s friend, Eric “Roscoe” Ambel

Yesterday’s festivities took Kyle and his father through mostly back roads to Rockport (via Gloucester), Brookline (via West Roxbury) and home (via 117 through Bolton). Along the way we passed landmarks that reminded me and had me thinking about and mentioning old girlfriends to young Mr. Daley. Well, past girlfriends. I certainly wouldn’t use this space to call these lovely women old. From “Sally lived near here,” to “Cheryl lived around here somewhere” to “Suzanne lives right up that street,” it was a trip down mamory (I’m going to leave that typo squared right there…) but still ex-Memory Lane.

About an hour ago, I parked myself out at the newly pressure-washed patio table on my deck with a Maker’s Mark seasoned cigar and my Intel powered appendage to write something. As I savored the marked tobacco, I asked Megan to pour me a Maker’s on the rocks. Being an inexperienced, yet generous barkeep, she brought me this, so el posto may be a bit messy.

Relationships can be messy, but among the three noted above, one wasn’t a relationship at all, one was an engagement before its time and the latter a relationship before I could handle one. Oh, and they’re not in that order. See? Messy.

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Anyway, somewhere between the strands of fibers known as this long weekend I also wondered, “Will I ever buy another woman a diamond ring?” Since I don’t much buy into the forged feelings of Valentine’s Day, my inclination is to challenge the validity of the diamond ring as some attestation of love. If love is proven by a shiny cut of compressed carbon, that’s, well, kinda shallow. Now that I’ve done a little research on this here net of inter, it’s even more unlikely, but I’m a sap, so who knows? It won’t be from DeBeers though. That’s for sure.

I bought some yesterday for someone I visited in a psychiatric hospital. There, the residents time their days by hourly smoke breaks and “group” sessions, between which they contemplate the shadows they hide in but cannot handle. I imagine some visitors leave and never return, but I don’t know any, and frankly I’m sick of spending holidays in these places for fear of the spiral a no-show might trigger. This post isn’t going well… I was hoping for some insightful observations from the experience, but honestly they’re always the same people, broken by their own hand gripping a bottle, pipe or syringe. I wonder how many suffer organic mental illness among the masses that’ve caused theirs. Perhaps I’m being too harsh, but after a life of booze and/or drugs finally renders someone a hollow black, carbon crusted shell, why the fuck are the rest of us obligated to coddle them until discharge and repeat performance? Actually, the reason is to avert the collateral damage to other loved ones if the sad circus leaves town early.

“Yes Man” was an entertaining couple hours for Kyle and me Saturday night. The plotline takes a “no man,” (Jim Carrey) a guy dodging life, and turns him into a “Yes Man” responding affirmatively to everything after a life-changing experience at a “Yes” seminar. The film had some hilarious moments, but also got me thinking about saying “yes” more to opportunities in life’s playground.

Early in the movie, Carrey’s protagonist ignores phone calls (totally me) just to avoid talking, but as he renovates, answering leads to opportunities. Today I answered two personal calls often ignored in the past and both were from callers needing some help. They were challenging in different ways, but had I not answered, personal histories would have been altered, likely not for the better.

Saying “yes” today didn’t lead to a fateful romantic meeting or comic movie moment, but my instinct tells me choosing to engage helped others, and I feel some affirmation knowing that.

As I continue descending the sliding scale, down in the distance I see an intermediate goal aligned with the end of our “Biggest Loser” contest at work. My weekly goals are set in a “Weight Tracker” spreadsheet as are the weekly standings. From 6th place (down 4.2%), victory is attainable, but I’m not sure my -15.6% goal will get me there. All but a couple of people ahead of me really don’t have that much poundage to shed, so it’ll likely end up a two or three man race…

So far the only cheating I’ve done is a sourdough roll with butter while I worked from home last week. Single, reasonable portions are my key and they have been pretty easy to stick to. Temptation and fridge door dancing have been tempered with a single thought. “Everything in there but water has calories.” As I over think this thing, what concerns me most is a sub-conscious fight to retain the body type I’ve had for over 40 years, and if so, why?

My early memories of self-image probably began in junior high school when a school shopping trip permanently traumatized me when my mom insisted on perusing “husky” pants. I rationalized “fat” with “big” and thereafter pursued the “good” of being big, most prominently as a “power hitter” in baseball. That carried me through the ages of Little League, Babe Ruth League, High School, college and beyond. In the years since, I’ve always worked out and weight trained, partly to retain a strong, athletic, “big guy” image. As the years have padded the reflection, I’ve been blinded to its reality and of the metrics inflation glaring up from under my feet.

So I wonder, “Do I fear losing myself to a new, slim version of me that I’ve never known?” A little research turned up an article by Tracy Rose called, “Self-Sabotage – Reasons Not to Lose Weight.” In addition to the one above, she cites several methods of self-sabotage relevant to me:

• Letting fear of life without the fat barrier get the best of you.
• Being afraid of how you’ll respond when people show they are attracted to you.
• You won’t be able to use fat as an excuse to stay on the sidelines of life anymore.

I don’t know why “fear of damaging my relationship with pizza” didn’t make the list, but I do know the Neapolitan is pretty pissed off at me right about now… Down is an interesting journey.