Something's coming, something good

See it? On the horizon? A bright and shining light is coming, ready to illuminate these darkened archways and fill my life with joy. And that's why I'm doing laundry.

There's something quite lovely about doing housework in anticipation of a special guest. Like a lot of things I do for myself as a livealone guy, housework has lost its allure. But if I'm preparing for an honored visitor, suddenly the grime around the faucet that I've lived with for six months is intolerable, and if it takes brillo pads, it's gonna bite the dust.

But it's more that I want to communicate how important this person is to me. I'd gladly fling rose petals on the varandah if I didn't think they'd blow away in the wind (and if I had a varandah).

There's all sorts of things I'd go and buy if I had any money just because this sure ain't the Ritz-Carlton, but I wish it were. See, this is when I wish I had moolah - and a staff. Any staff at all. Major domo, chambermaid, third footman, exec-assist, so I could whip them into a frenzy of preparatory activities, like when Dolly Levi returns to the Harmonia Gardens. And I could use a gold lame outfit and a peacock feather headdress, while I'm at it. Chop chop. "Nora, Ito, Pegeen, dear, you better bring the ladder again." A nice house elf would do. Dobby or even Kreacher. Just someone to punch through my to-do list.

Naw, jus kiddin, because my esteemed guest doesn't give a hoot, I know she doesn't, and it's fun to 'get ready.' What the hell, it's an apartment, thassall. More to the point, I just want to be a better Stevie for a couple of days, a thinner, cleaner, more energetic, hip and happening man so that my visitor will take home a fresh, cheery bleach-scented memory of the Stevie I want to be.

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou describes the one and only time her Uncle Willie, a limping, stuttering man with a shriveled arm and a short leg, mustered all his strength to present to the world a "whole" man. Uncle Willie worked behind the counter of his mother's general store in dirt-poor Stamps, Arkansas, during the twenties and thirties, and once in a great while there would be a customer from out of town, just driving through, who stopped in for an orange ne-hi. On this one occasion, when a husband and wife came into the Store (schoolteachers from Tuskaloosa, Uncle Willie said later), Uncle Willie pulled himself as tall as he could be, tried not to drool and slur, and had a nice visit with these people. As Maya recalls the story, she wonders what it was that made Uncle Willie, on this particular day, want these people to take with them a memory of an uncrippled man. "Maybe he just got tired of being what he was." After the couple left, Maya watched as Uncle Willie sagged back into his usual crooked shape, his mouth once again pulled to one side, his stong limb holding up the rest of his body.

I think I understand.

My heart is full at the prospect of spending time with my honored guest. We're going to have a phenomenal time, no doubt about it. This is truly a dream come true for me. So cue the trumpets, release the doves and tell the spa attendent to throw some crushed lavender in the jacuzzi.

I just wish I looked like Ewan MacGregor, thassall :)

Starting Again . . . Again . . . Again

Yes, it's me, it's Stevie, hello hello hello dear friends, sorry to make you worry, sorry to have disappeared off the face of the earth . . . but I'm back, and my head is bowed, and my eyes are bloodshot, and my hat is in my hands, and I stand before you, a slightly more bloated thing than before, still employed (thank God) and doing generally well, once again connected to broadband after a nine-month hiatus and ready, finally - finally - to climb back onto the bucking back of the giant, three-headed, flame-breathing monster called Moderate Eating (ME indeed!).

I was doing so well.

Then I let a stressful job search and other mundane things get in the way.

Before I knew it I was slipping and sliding down the path, not precisely bingeing exactly but not holding myself accountable for the little things that somehow trickle down my throat without any conscious awareness. My AA friend with 25 years of sobriety says you don't have to be stumble-down drunk not to be living soberly. This is true for me. A donut here, a burger there, a pint of ice cream, half a pizza (I think of these as little things), and the legs get a little stiffer from disuse, the breathing becomes a little shallower, the clothes get tighter, the shoes harder to tie, the self-esteem spirals down and suddenly I'm fatter by 70 pounds. I had dropped 120. I'm still down 50 from my peak, but in the scheme of things, I'm back up into walrus land. A year ago I was a slightly sveldter elephant seal. The steering wheel is rubbing against my shirts again, leaving hazy black smudges across my widest spot, like a dirty watermark on a float toy.

Sigh.

There have been half-hearted attempts over these last months to get back on track; of course I know from experience that it takes a full-throttle push from all engines to turn this particular megaship around, and that half-hearted equals flop from the get go. I think it's part of the self-esteem slide, creating scenarios where I would fail in order to confirm to myself my low opinion.

I think I'm most ashamed of how boring it all is. Gain. Lose. Gain. Lose. Again and again and again. I think that's mainly why I hide from friends during periods of slothful gain. Aside from the embarrassment and humiliation for having failed again and again and again. My friends swear to me, "Stevie, we love you as you are, we want to see you and hear from you regardless of your weight," and I truly believe them, but it's me who doesn't love me as I am. I'm the one who feels disappointment in myself with every big meal, with every awareness that my chin is rubbing against my chest. I know there's no way to do something good for myself without believing I deserve it. My mantra during the last weight loss was, "I love myself, I forgive myself, and I accept myself." I believed it. I haven't believed it in awhile.

Now it's time to jump again into the pool of self-acceptance.

Here goes!